Darkest Before Dawn: Sequel to Heart of Darkness
by Eveshka
Summary: Lina and company set forth to discover the truth behind the Heart, and to try to find Zelgadis before his soul is irrevocably lost. For if he becomes the Avatar of Shabranigdo, Lina will have no choice but to destroy the man she loves.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was said that it was always darkest before dawn, that the sun would rise and shine brightly again, bringing with it the promise of a new day and a brave new hope.

Whatever half-witted imbecile had come up with that had never met a Mazoku, never crossed paths with those who lived within the shadows of the darkness that crept on the outskirts of the minds of the pure who feared corruption, the virtuous that feared vice.

If they had, then they for certain would have been utterly destroyed before they had created such raving drivel as that. It would have been proven beyond shadow of a doubt that when things looked bleak and dark beyond imagining, they were even darker. No amount of hope or fervent wishing masquerading as prayer would remotely save them from the fate that befell everyone.

At least, that was the sole opinion of the figure that was lying on the stone floor of the room that was caught in perpetual darkness, shielded from the sun by walls and walls of blue rocky rubble. It was intentional, this isolation and seclusion from everything that illuminated, enlightened. He didn't want to remember what it had been to walk within the light, to stray so delightfully close to the light and heat of the fire. He didn't want to recall that he himself had once walked within that light, had dared to try to exist within the blessing of Cepheid.

It hurt to remember, so he chose not to.

What he remembered instead was the pain. The pain of his nature, the pain that gave him life and breath and… what? He couldn't say 'hope' for there was none. There was a dry and defeated acknowledgement that he was a Mazoku. He'd thought once that he was something else, something better, something that had a future, had a hope. He'd dared to want a wife, a family, a home. He'd tried, really tried. He'd found her, even gone so far as to run away with her, to marry her by the waters of an unknown and distant shore, to lose himself in the magical nature that was her singular own.

But it had fallen apart, just as he had dreaded, just as he had known that it would.

He was, after all, a Mazoku.

Mazoku couldn't love; they couldn't do anything other than hurt and twist others into hurting. He wanted to do that, _longed_ to do that. The longer he lay on the stone floor, the more the memories of being something other than Mazoku faded. The longer he lay in the cold darkness, the more he needed the pain, needed the anguish of others to feed him and make him feel once more.

He needed that pain, needed that rush of emotion, and a dark flush of desire reared its head within him, burning with a startling coldness. It was almost strong enough for him to smell it, to taste the delightfully bittersweet tang of the anguish that he could bring forth from another's soul. It made him bite his lip and he opened brilliantly crystalline blue diamond eyes. The pain of his teeth made the need burst higher, and he fell into it, yielding to it.

The figure rose from the floor, lifting languidly into the air, turning in mid-air to cast a cold gaze far past the walls that enclosed him. He was a tall man clothed entirely in black silk that hung close to his frame, his long near-black hair past his shoulders. If there had been any light within the room, it would have illustrated the startling and almost unearthly contrast that the paleness of his skin had against the clothing, for it had been some time since he had been beyond these walls, since he had moved among the outside world.

Moments passed as his gaze flew far past the walls of the room, into a distant and fading memory where something tried to reach back and grab him. A blue glint cast a sharp and sudden brilliance into his mind, and then it burst into a million tiny little lights that faded backwards to become the night sky above him as he hovered in mid-air over the ruins of a town that had once been called Ambervale.

This was his home, the place of his mortal birth and his immortal creation as well, for it was here that he first experienced the rush and thrill of the power that he could so easily wield with the merest of thoughts. It was as blissfully dark as he was, the buildings long ago burned to black char, the roads gone to dust and dirt. There was nothing remotely appealing about the ruins, and he appreciated that for the picturesque bleakness that it was.

It was a reflection of himself, as if the town had been made that way. In truth, perhaps he had, for he had been the one who had destroyed the town, he had been who had reached out and called forth the darkest of desires within himself, projecting them upon the pathetic mortals who had called this place home.

But now it was a shell, a hollow emptiness that echoed when he walked within the streets. He preferred it that way, the silence akin to that of a grave that he could never find.

In the distance, he could see a group of people days out of a small town. Perhaps they were bandits that he could temporarily ally himself with. Perhaps he could persuade them to allow him to join the group. He'd help them cause havoc in the town, help them to become better bandits. And whoever survived could be his… well. He'd just have to see about that, now wouldn't he?

With a grin that was almost feral in nature, he drew his power to himself, vanishing in the night sky with nothing to leave witness that he had hovered there for an indeterminate amount of time.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

For a week, life had been relatively calm. Lina had slept nearly an entire day, and then came dangerously close to eating everything in the Palace kitchens. She spent most of her waking time in the great libraries, the brilliant gemstone carefully wrapped in the silken cloth that Xellos had given her. She'd figured out the reason that he'd given it to her, the reason he had the reaction that he had had in the room where they had found it.

The Heart was a dangerous source of great power, created in the fashion that it had been, it was little wonder that it didn't broadcast the power. It relied instead on direct contact, and through that, it could reach into the heart of the holder and twist the emotions within. In Lina's case, it only heightened her despair at losing Zelgadis. It couldn't rage against the truth of her heart. She'd heard once that she had a pure heart, and this only continued to prove it. The purity of her love couldn't be corrupted by the Heart's power.

And so she read every script that she could find, every scrap of every document that remotely hinted at Mazoku and Chimeras and anything that might possibly pertain. It was mostly conjecture, mostly old tales that had changed over the years as they were passed via word of mouth.

She closed the last book in her pile and sat back in the chair, belatedly noticing that Naga was standing there with a worried expression. "Hi…"

"Hi, Lina," Naga took the greeting as an invitation to sit next to the redhead. "Have you found anything useful?" She poked at the books and parchments, unable to recall any times when she had seen the petite sorceress so devoted to reading and learning.

Lina shook her head with a sigh, picking up the cloth and peering at the glittering gem within. "Not really. I feel like I ought to be able to just put my hand on it and understand everything, but it only makes me…" Cry. She couldn't voice the word. Every time she'd touched the Heart an overwhelming longing sadness had fallen through her, threatening to fill her with never-ending tears.

"Do you at least think you know how it was created?" Naga asked, regarding the brilliance that she could see with a curiosity that could very well get her burned. "You said that it was part of him…"

Lina tugged the pendant out from under her black shirt, holding it up by the fine gold chain. "Zelgadis sent this to me, and I know that it was somehow a part of him. And when the two stones meet…" She lifted the Heart to the pendant, and both gems burst into life, a fire alit from within each one. "There's a connection between them. But I don't know how, or what. All I know is that I can touch the pendant, but not the stone."

The figure in the shadows stood near the bookcase watching the two women as he idly flipped through a random book that he'd pulled from the shelf. So Lina still hadn't given up on the stone. He knew it was only a matter of time before she started to think outside of the books and parchments, before she thought to ask one of the Mazoku themselves what the Heart truly was, and he wasn't looking forwards to the answers.

After all, he knew precisely what it was, how it had been created, and what it would take to bring it back together with the stone's source… and nothing short of a miracle could restore the one that it had been torn from… unless it had been willingly shed.

Eyes narrowed in consideration. He hadn't thought about that. If Zelgadis had willingly sacrificed his heart to protect Lina… that could explain why the gem hadn't been found and used by Cassandra or Kessary. It would have been nothing more than a pretty gem until touched by the one it had been given for.

In this case, that was Lina.

The fact that her pendant echoed it was hopeful, for he knew that the stone within the pendant had been given freely, had been a gift, a hope, a chance for Lina to search the world and find Zelgadis, no matter where she was, no matter where he was.

It was supposed to find his heart. So it made sense that it came to life when placed in proximity to the Heart… this needed more thinking, careful consideration and discussion. He closed the book and slid it back on the shelf, turning to step into the deeper shadow and vanish from the library.

Unaware of the one who had watched them, Lina re-wrapped the Heart in the cloth and looked to Naga. "We should get back to the Palace. I'm hungry, and I want to decide what to do next. We haven't heard from Jedah, Xellos, or Zelgadis since the day I came back. That's either a good thing, or a bad thing. My guess is it's the latter and that it'll all come piling onto me shortly."

Naga looked at Lina with a vague little smile, and then she nodded, following the redheaded tempest out into the streets of Saillune. "Um… Lina?" She said as they rounded the corner to move up the street towards the Palace. "I'm… glad that you're not… miserable." She meant it as a compliment.

Lina half turned to Naga as she walked, quirking a fragile smile that didn't last long on her lips. It left Naga with the impression that Lina was miserable, though she didn't confirm or deny her emotions. Instead, she just turned back to the Palace, her crimson eyes looking up to the wing that her life now called home.

There, right there, she could see 'her' porch. She wondered if she'd ever see the man that she'd married again, would ever stand with him on that porch and look out across Saillune and wonder where to go next.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Palace had been a quiet place for almost two weeks. Amelia and Naga had almost settled into life once again. Naga was once again up to her old routine of sleeping in and eating everything in sight. It was amazing that she managed to keep her figure, though thankfully, she hadn't gone back to wearing that hideous bikini.

Amelia was still the early riser, and so it was that she was standing on her balcony, looking out over the city and watching the stars start to fade as the morning began. It was promising to be a beautiful morning in Saillune, just like the vast majority of mornings in the holy city. She was leaned on the railing, her hair flipping in the cool breeze, her blouse blowing loosely over her black pants.

"It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?" His voice caused her to stiffen and freeze, though he kept talking as he walked up behind her and put his right arm lightly around her. "I used to love getting up early, finding a lofty perch and watching the sun rise." He was warm against her, a companionable touch, not overly familiar, but a gentle and almost agreeable feeling.

If it weren't for the fact that he was a Mazoku.

"I…" Amelia spoke quietly, her voice edged with a tinge of alarm. "Please, Jedah. Not so close." She shifted her weight, trying to free herself from that wonderfully warm and all too dangerous embrace. He was Mazoku, and not just any Mazoku at that. He was Hellmaster, though perhaps not as insane as the last one she'd been unfortunate enough to meet.

The silence was, for a moment, awkward, and then Jedah moved away from her, placing his hand on the railing in front of him in a slow and easy movement that seemed as natural as his walking up and placing his arm behind her. "I'm… sorry, Amelia." He _sounded_ sorry, and Amelia turned her head to look to him.

He was caught in profile, his clear blue eyes looking out over the city, the incoming sunlight catching the depths in his black hair and bringing them up to highlights. Somehow, she could see that he was sorry, even though he was Mazoku. With a tremulous frown, she tilted her head. "You _are_ sorry, aren't you?"

He looked down, casting his pale gaze down to the gardens below for a moment before he turned his head to look to her, though he didn't quite meet her eyes. "I wouldn't have hurt any of you, if I'd had the option to do otherwise, Amelia. You can call it a failing, if you will. My mother knows that I've damned my father enough times for his heart, which he deemed oh, _so_ important as to bestow upon me." He turned away from her, his voice turning bitter, his eyes hardening as the sun's rays lit them. "He should have given it to Rezo instead."

Amelia's own blue eyes widened as she thought of the implications of that. "Jedah… are you saying…" Her voice trailed off as she considered, and she shook her head. "It must be difficult." She turned back to watch the light as it began to caress the buildings. "You weren't always Hellmaster, I know. So you had to watch everything that Phibrizo did, everything that you would eventually come to do. Did you know that one day you'd become Hellmaster?" She was surprised that it came out of her mouth so casually.

"No. We're just another race of beings, Amelia. We don't see the future; we don't have endless prophecies and religions. We simply see more of the scale of the World we walk. Things like Good and Evil are Mortal perception. Your rules can't apply to us because the truth isn't remotely what you can conceive. And for all I know, it isn't what I can, either." Jedah's voice had remained calm through his startling commentary, his eyes tracking the rays of light as they brought the city out of slumber, raised the sleepers from their dreams, and brought new perceptions into the world.

Amelia didn't know what to say, for she'd never once considered it like that. To have thought that a Mazoku was simply trying to survive just like the rest of them was a strange and new thing to consider. But if anyone had known that, it would have had to have been Lina. "Lina… knows. Doesn't she? She's walked that path enough times to have figured out that there is no clear line dividing anything. That's why she's tolerated Xellos all of these years, that's why she can carry the Nightmare magic."

Jedah turned to look to her, his eyes meeting hers for the first time since she looked at him so apathetically that it had forced him to look away, lest she see the emotions written in the icy blue. "See, you're starting to understand." He quirked a faint little smile that wanted to grow, if she'd give a sign that it could. "One day, Amelia… one day, you'll be an amazing ruler. You'll be the Queen of Saillune, the best there ever has been. I hope that I get to see that. I truly do." He watched the blush creep across her cheeks, his smile brightening.

_The only thing that lies like a shadow across that path is Zelgadis. He doesn't understand, and by forcing the Mortal views on himself, he's forcing himself to fracture further. Without the Heart…_ Jedah turned to look across the town once more, not noticing Amelia's frown of worry. "You should get going to breakfast before Lina and Naga eat it all."

"Naga won't be up for at least another hour—hey!" The explosion below shook the Palace and Amelia's eyes widened. "That was Lina!" She turned, running back into her room, yanking the bedroom door open to look out into the empty hallway. "What's going on?" She pulled herself back into her room, turning to look back to the balcony.

Jedah was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"All right! Up and at 'em!" Lina marched down the hallway, alternately making a small fireball explode on bedroom doors, and hollering at the sleeping occupants within. "It's time to get up and get moving. We've rested, recovered, researched, and it's time to put all of that to good use."

The bedroom door next to Lina opened and Gourry's tousled blonde head stuck out. "Lina, do you have any clue what time it is?" He mumbled, peering at the fully dressed sorceress with a bleary gaze.

"Yeah, Gourry, it's time to GET UP!" Lina yelled in his face, crimson eyes blazing and tiny fangs showing. "I've spent two weeks hiding here and licking my wounds, two weeks waiting for some sort of indication that Zelgadis was on the move. And it came in an hour ago." She was waving a paper in her hand, something that looked like a letter.

"What came in an hour ago?" Naga yawned, reaching out to take the letter from Lina's hand and read it for herself. Her eyes narrowed as she read the paper, and she looked over the edge of it at Lina's back as the sorceress marched down the hall. "You've got to be kidding, Lina!"

The letter was plucked out of Naga's hands, Amelia scanning the words written in hasty ink that didn't look as if it had been given a chance to dry out. _A figure in black has been seen in bandit group terrorizing towns in the western provinces of Kingdom of Ralteague. By all accounts, the group seems more organized and vicious. My guess is that it's probably your man. –A_ "What? Who is 'A,' Lina? How do they know this? Why…?" She looked up in time to come to a verbal halt.

Lina had come to a stop, her head bowed as she faced Amelia. Under the best of circumstances, the redheaded sorceress had been known to lift her head and lay That Look on whatever unwitting recipient was about to be on the hot spot before landing on them and pummeling them nearly senseless. In the worst of circumstances, well, practically any spell that Lina had in her arsenal could be called to hand. Either way, it was guaranteed to be Not Pleasant.

But what happened wasn't either of the two extremes that Amelia was expecting. Instead of glaring or blasting or doing anything remotely destructive, Lina looked up to the ceiling, her eyes suspiciously bright. "I asked the bartender to keep his ears open. Bars are good for information, you know. I'm pretty sure that's Zelgadis in that bandit group. The last place we knew him to be was in the ruins of Rezo's tower near Ambervale. And that's in Ralteague, remember?"

Silence filtered over the princesses, and Sylphiel pushed past Gourry to step out into the hall and touch the letter with her fingertip, bending it slightly in Amelia's grasp so that she could read it. "I think we should go," she offered as she read it. "Somewhere deep in his heart, Zelgadis is counting on us to find him and help him."

No, Sylphiel. Deep in his heart… Lina's thought trailed off as she gave the Cleric a strange look. _His heart… no, his Heart. His Heart is with me!!_ Without any word, without an explanation, Lina turned, almost literally running for the small library at the end of the hall. She reached into her cloak pocket as she ran, clutching the purple silk-wrapped stone. It had to work!

It was simple reflex that had everyone chasing after her, even the unwilling Gourry finding himself caught up in the curiosity and tearing down the hallway after her, slippers flipping against his heels.

By the time everyone had gathered around the table where Lina had stopped, she had unwrapped the purple silk to reveal the Heart and carefully placed it on the glass table. As they watched in confusion, she tugged her pendant off over her head, wrapping the chain around her left wrist and dangling the gem over the Heart, hand open, palm down. "Source of all souls which dwell in eternal and infinite, light which burns brilliant from within my soul, let this light shine forth!" The gem suspended by the chain began to glow, and as Lina lowered it to the Heart, it too began to glow, a strange reverse of the other, as if it were absorbing the glow.

Amelia and Naga both recognized the reversal; both saw the magic flare back, the Mazoku nature of the stone crystal clear within the depths. Instinctively, Amelia cast a spell, her hand flashing out, a sphere of pearlescent magic snapping into place over the Heart and nullifying Lina's spell. "Guumueon!" Angry darkness hit the pearlescent sphere from within, and before Lina could blink, the Heart was once more inert and still.

Lina pulled her hand back, as if she had been shocked. She clutched the small gem to her chest, her eyes wide as she looked at the gemstone on the table, the Heart which looked so beautiful, so pure. "That was… that was that spell that Zelgadis cast before. What…" What had ripped Xellos in half and come too close to killing her. A little voice in the back of her head reminded her oh-so-helpfully that it had killed her, and Sylphiel's magic had brought her back.

"We can't use Astral magics to find Zelgadis, Lina. It's too dangerous. We'll have to do it the old-fashioned way," Amelia said quietly, her voice far steadier than she felt. Casting the guumueon was difficult enough, but to be able to cast it in one breath, she hadn't thought she could do it… she wondered absently if her hair had changed color. "Give us the chance to get dressed and we'll all meet for breakfast and discuss our plan to find him."

Lina looked up to Amelia and nodded, looking pale and shaken. There was no illusion in her mind now; Zelgadis had to be found. One way or the other, she had to find him. There would be hidden dangers in everything he had touched until she did.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The bandit group had been skeptical at first, only allowing the mysterious stranger in black to participate from the sidelines. But after the man with the blue diamond eyes had proven to be the most successful in acquisitions by four times over the best in the group the first night… well, he was instantly the boss' new right hand man.

The second night, the raid was an unmitigated success. There was three times as much treasure, and the taste of terror that the men got from the villagers only whetted their appetite for more. It stood to reason, therefore, that they immediately put the title of Leader onto Zelgadis' more than willing shoulders.

His first order of business was to make all of the men switch to black clothing at night. It made them harder to see and not as easily identified during the day.

The second thing that he did was to send the men into the town dressed in normal clothing and have them get a feel for the area, to see what places were likely to have more things that could be stolen. He called it 'reconnaissance' but most of the men couldn't begin to pronounce it. He didn't let it irritate him; it wouldn't do to get aggravated with the men so early on in the game.

The third order of business was to dispense with the foolish name that the bandits had come up with for themselves. The 'Slippery Eels' just wasn't anything that remotely struck terror into anyone's heart. In fact it lent most to hysterical laughter and bemused looks.

The men stood around him, looking at their new leader in a mixture of dismayed curiosity. He stood there in the center, a lazy sort of graceful figure in his movements, each motion languid and flowing. He reminded some men of a cat, others of something far older and nearly draconian. Of course, none of them were remotely accurate.

"We have to have a name, Boss. Something to call ourselves that will strike terror into the hearts of others," one man said thoughtfully as he scratched his beard.

Zelgadis considered this. True, there was power in a name, more than the bandits around him could possibly know. In fact, there was a name that came to his mind unbidden, a name that had a strange tangle of emotions. "Dra-mata…" He murmured it without thinking, and every man around him paled and stepped backwards as one.

"Boss, is that what happened to your last group? She came through and took them all out?" The bearded man spoke in a tremulous voice, eyes wide. Every man here had heard of the bandit-killer, and a few of them had seen firsthand the destruction that she was capable of wielding.

Including Zelgadis, who lifted his head, dark diamond eyes flashing a furious fire for a moment before he answered. "She won't be a problem." It was said with such ringing finality that the bandits had no doubts that his words were the truth. He regarded the man who had wanted a name, and nodded. "Fine, you want a name? We'll have a name. Nightstalkers. Now get out of my sight and learn about the next town."

The men scattered, for even though Zelgadis had been with the group for less than a week, his was a voice of command that brooked no resistance or refusal. If it occurred to any of the men to question his orders, the thought of what might happen to them kept them from doing so. It wasn't quite an iron fist, but it wasn't a loose reign either. A Mazoku's charisma could be quite an effective tool when wielded properly.

He watched the men move away, watched them follow his instructions and head off for town in groups, laughing and carousing, as if they were simply a group of travelers heading into the town for supplies and a chance at a soft bed and a hot shower. He had to admit that this group had best chances of becoming what he wanted of them… a handful of mortal minions to cause havoc and wreak destruction around them. One or two might have a potential to become something more than just mortal, but he'd have to wait and see who would ultimately pass that test.

For now, he would sit back and wait to see what the men found in the town. He had no desire or need to go exploring to see what there was to see. He'd find the bar, order a drink and pretend to drink it while he watched the inhabitants, see if there was anyone worth trying to recruit. He doubted it, but it was worth a look. If he was lucky, the bar would at least be a reasonable place to gather some information on the surrounding area.

He waited until all of the men were gone before he allowed his power to collect around him, changing his appearance, making himself look older, some grey shooting through hair that hung in his face, concealing the one thing about his appearance that he couldn't change: his eyes.

Assuming the appearance of a grizzled swordsman in worn armor, he turned towards town, moving in an easy limp, as if he'd recently taken an injury and had been released from his bond. He scratched at the new stubble on his chin as he made his way to town, considering what to call himself when the villagers asked. Perhaps something easy this time, like Rick. It was easy enough to remember, wouldn't require much explanation. He didn't need to choose a family name; he'd pass it off as a condition of bondstanding if necessary.

Most of the time, it never came to that. Villagers tended to take him at face value, never questioning him too hard. If pressured, he could claim that he had escaped from Ambervale and that would be the end of that.

As he entered the town, people started to wave and nod to him amiably. It was just another small town on the road, people were friendly, and he felt himself smile. It would be perfect pickings.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Eaaaghh! This stiiiinks!!!" Lina whined as the group left Saillune. She hadn't counted on everyone going with her. She'd been perfectly willing to head off on her own, but no. Amelia had insisted that she go, and where Amelia went, Naga was going to go. Sylphiel decided that they'd need a healer, and Gourry wouldn't let Sylphiel go without him. Lina felt as if she were herding cats. "It's gonna take me a week to get there!"

Gourry sighed and shook his head as they moved out of the populated outlying area and into the more sparsely occupied farming areas that had cropped up outside the city walls. "It's better to walk into a situation like what we're facing, Lina. We'll have to familiarize ourselves with the area and the people… there will be a lot of questions, and it's better that you not use your magic. You might need it later."

The thought that Lina might need her magic in a square-off showdown with Zelgadis silenced everyone for a long time, the little group wending its way through the farmlands, past the last farm and out into the open lands between Saillune and Ralteague.

"Lina, what are you going to do about that stone?" Amelia asked after a while, dropping back a bit to speak to the sorceress. She thought the stone was entirely too dangerous, a hand-held magical trap designed to ensnare any Astral mage within its reach.

"It's part of him, Amelia, just as the pendant he gave me was a part of him once upon a time. The only difference is that this stone…" Lina's voice trailed off. She hadn't told Amelia what the stone was. "This stone is the Heart of Darkness, Amelia. As far as I can tell, it formed from Zelgadis when his heart broke."

"His heart… broke?" Amelia echoed, and the words brought the entire little group to a halt. "How could Zelgadis' heart have broken, Lina?" There were still times when Amelia reminded Lina of that annoying little girl that had joined her group once upon a distant memory, the one who had been unable to see anything beyond the love and justice that cast stars in her eyes.

"You didn't see the room where we found this." Lina's voice was quiet, her words careful and slow as she patted the black velvet pouch where the Heart rested. She could see the room in her mind's eye as she spoke. "It was a dark room, with a hard metal table in the center, large and heavy chains draped all over it. It looked like she'd chained him there, held him and tortured him." Lina would spare Amelia the knowledge of the pools of blood.

"Oh no… poor Zelgadis," Sylphiel murmured, putting her hand to her mouth. She could imagine any number of things that Cassandra might have done to Zelgadis. As a Cleric, she had been charged with learning the ways that Mazoku tried to break people so that she could heal the injuries that had resulted. It was probably why Sylphiel couldn't so much as raise a hand to a bug.

Gourry looked pale, and Naga's lips twisted but she said nothing as Amelia shivered. "That's nothing short of pure evil, Lina. We need to find Cassandra and punish her in the name of Goodness and Love for what she's done!"

Lina sweatdropped, but she shook her head and looked out over the horizon, starting to walk again, forcing the others to get moving to keep within hearing distance. "Jedah did that for us, Amelia." She left out the wry comment that he had made in that room. Better to just let them consider that as they walked. Just because Jedah was Hellmaster didn't mean that he was evil. After all, her sister Luna was the Cepheid Knight, and she was closer to evil in Lina's point of view.

"Jedah…" Amelia said quietly, her gaze shifting away from Lina's back. She still didn't know what to think of Jedah. She liked him… but he was Hellmaster. She, the future Queen of Saillune, couldn't possibly entertain any sort of relationship with him, and there she'd been, kissing him! It made her head hurt to think about it.

Naga watched her sister for a moment, sighing softly. She couldn't decide which was worse, having Amelia unhappy that she was alone… or having Amelia unhappy because she'd had the misfortune to find a young man cute… when he just so happened to be Hellmaster and therefore not precisely the ideal choice. Pah.

Sylphiel and Gourry followed quietly, each keenly aware of the other, and the simple fact that they had each other and there was no thought of allegiance or creed to place a wall between them. It left them both rather self-conscious as they walked with Lina.

Hearts were tricky, dangerous things. At any given moment, one can go completely opposite to the nature of thought, go careening off-course to the chagrin of everyone involved. A heart could hurt others, could hurt itself, break or soar in reckless abandon. It could be heavy; a thing of tears and pain, or it could be light and joyful. It was a blessing and a curse, a dual edged sword that lay within one's own being. Some were coveted and kept, some were given freely. Some were stone and others gold. It was the rare heart that could still beat true and pure in the face of absolute pain and adversity.

Lina was the rare one, the only one who could possibly carry the Heart of Darkness and not lose herself within it. Jedah stood in the road behind the little group and watched her walk, his eyes alone able to see the darkness of the Heart, and the glowing counter-light of Lina's own heart. He knew that if Lina's light faltered, all hope for Zelgadis would be lost. Nothing could stop him from helping her. Not his mother, not Lina, not even Zelgadis himself.

Even if it cost him his own.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Xellos had been sent ahead, set in Lina's path like the patent troublemaker he was. Left to his own devices in the small town where Jedah had told him in no uncertain terms to 'stay put,' he decided to make the most of his time, causing mayhem in subtle ways to amuse himself as he saw fit.

He'd been here for almost a week, and was something of a wandering priest to these people, always offering advice and lending an ear to listen to people's problems. Occasionally, the advice that Xellos gave had to be good advice, or the people in the town might grow suspicious and mistrusting.

Often, he found the children to be his best assistants in havoc-wreaking. All he had to do was plant the seed of an idea in an impressionable youngster's head, and watch it take root like a weed, wild and uncontrollable.

The child or the idea? Yes.

The afternoon found the purple priest of pandemonium perched on a park bench, looking down at a small book in his left hand. His staff was laid carelessly across his lap, and he had just turned a page in his book when a small child ran headlong into the park, leaping up into him, pitching Xellos, the book and the child backwards.

"Xel! Xel!" Arms wrapped around the startled Mazoku, and purple eyes half opened to identify the whirlwind that usurped him in mid-sentence. He watched in horror as the little girl leaned in to plaster his face with not one kiss, but three of the juiciest, stickiest, sloppiest kisses that he'd had to endure thus far in his existence.

"Cheri! Cheri!" Xellos protested as he fended the exuberant little girl off. "Holy terror, off!" He forced himself to laugh, to act like he appreciated the… glee. It was quite the opposite, really. In his opinion, Cheri was a true Holy Terror, and she was getting better at catching him unaware. Usually he tried to vanish before she found him, utilizing a convenient shadow or something equally as quick. True, he had taught her how to read people, how to know precisely what to do to illicit the best reactions… but he was beginning to regret doing that.

Unfortunately, Cheri showed no desire to go anywhere, instead settling herself on his chest and reaching up to toy with Xellos' hair. "Let me play with your hair, please? Just for a few minutes, and then I'll get up. Okay?" Her large green eyes were so wide, so innocent, so pleading…

With an affected sigh, Xellos relented, reasoning that there wasn't much that a child could possibly do to his hair that could be remotely problematic. She was, after all, a single Mortal girl. What could she possibly do to him? It didn't strike him that he ought to be concerned.

Until she pulled the hair ribbons out of nowhere and moved in with a gleam in her eye.

Xellos' screams were pure terror.

The little group had begun to run the moment they had heard the screams of terror. Unable to resist the rush of adrenaline, Lina took to the air with a Levitation spell, and darted ahead of everyone else. "That sounds like trouble guys! I'm going on ahead, maybe it's Zelgadis!"

Before Gourry or anyone else could call out words of caution to Lina, the redhead had zipped between some trees and effectively vanished.

Naga sighed, shaking her head as she ran along next to Amelia. "What does she think she can do if it is Zelgadis, Amelia? He's a lot more powerful than she is now…" She didn't want to finish that statement. What they'd all seen in the cave not quite a month ago was that the man who had been Zelgadis was a frighteningly evil-feeling Mazoku.

Amelia looked to her sister for a moment, and then looked back towards the path that lead to the town. "I don't know, Naga. I'm worried, though… if he's really as bad as we think he is… he'll have to be stopped."

Lina had made that clear before, but it still didn't sit well with Naga. Sure, it was one thing to stand there and say that they could deal with a loved one who had become a Mazoku… but it was an entirely different thing indeed to actually lift hand and cast a potentially life-ending spell against them.

By the time the others made it into the village, Lina was collapsed on the ground, rolling in helpless laughter, rolling as she gasped for air, clutching her stomach.

Amelia and Sylphiel ran to the Sorceress, fearing that something had gone Horribly Amiss, while Gourry and Naga looked around, each searching for the source of the problem… whatever it might have been.

Naga spotted it first and started to snicker, reaching out to clutch at Gourry's arm convulsively, her eyes widening as she finally gave in to laughter. Gourry stared dumbly at her for a moment, and then he turned to the side, looking towards where Naga had been looking. What he saw mildly surprised him. Xellos was sitting there, on the ground next to an upturned bench, his staff off to the side.

Lina was laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes.

"Oh! Hi, Xellos!" Gourry greeted the Mazoku cheerfully, reaching down to help the Trickster Priest to his feet. "Wow. Did you change the color of your shirt or something? You look different." He scratched his head as Naga doubled over in laughter, causing Amelia and Sylphiel to turn and look.

Xellos' purple hair had been lovingly and painstakingly coerced into long sausage curls, each curl tied up with a beautiful pink bow. At quick glance there were at least thirty bows visible… and then Amelia lost count as she started to giggle, eventually collapsing onto the ground next to Lina.

"Oh! Gourry dear, don't be silly. Xellos got his hair done!" Sylphiel said brightly, applauding.

Xellos sighed heavily. He was going to have some words with Jedah.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Nightstalkers. The name had started to spread, to catch and generate its own brand of fear and alarm. In every town that 'Rick' asked, the people had heard of the bandit group. When the villagers answered, there was always a sense of trepidation about them, nervousness as if simply speaking about the bandits that struck with such surgical precision would turn up that night. Which, sometimes they did.

Notoriety, Zelgadis was discovering, was good.

No villager could tell the 'aged swordsman' what the bandits looked like. There were rumors, guesses; some even thought that maybe that Lina Inverse had gone to the Mazoku, a thought that greatly amused the man who wore the aged swordsman's appearance.

But there was one thing for certain: the bandits were cleaning the towns they hit of practically everything they had.

It never occurred to the men to ask Zelgadis where he went during the day, nor did it appear to connect with any of them that the loot seemed to disappear after they turned it over and got their shares. They all watched the bags of treasure be carried into the small tent that Zelgadis called his own, but they never saw it after that.

Zelgadis didn't need the gold, didn't need the gems. He didn't even want any of it. He was in it for the fear of it, the rush of the high of the emotions that the bandits themselves were learning to enjoy. He sat back on the rock that he'd picked earlier and considered the ragtag band thoughtfully.

The small group of hardened men was gradually beginning to become more violent, starting to not just slip in and steal, but to take the steps to terrorize in the process. They were learning how to become Human equivalent of lesser Mazoku. They didn't need the powers; the mental terror they could incite was good enough.

For now.

It was morning, and it had been a night off, camping in the woods between towns on the old high road. If they haunted towns every night, they'd leave a pattern, and Zelgadis wasn't ready for them to be caught by authorities quite yet. The men were milling about like lost sheep, and Zelgadis decided that the men needed a real challenge.

He drew his maps out from his pocket and unfolded a page, looking them over thoughtfully. They'd been hitting villages, places that were little more than a tavern, a hotel and a collection of houses trying to pretend that they lived somewhere larger than they did. After careful consideration, he selected a town that was slightly larger with a cleric guild. It was slightly south of where the bandit group was, and he called them all together in the clearing near the rock.

"There's a town a few hours down the pass. It's somewhat larger than the villages we've been visiting. They have a Cleric guild, though not much of one, perhaps one or two mid-level Clerics on staff. This will be your first true challenge." Zelgadis began.

"Hey, Boss? Why'd we wait 'til now?" one of the men called out.

Zelgadis pinned him with a blue diamond gaze. "You weren't ready." He knew that none of them would argue. They'd learned early on that it wasn't wise to argue with him. When no-one else said anything, he turned to the man that he'd chosen as his Second, his voice quiet and calm in the stillness of the morning. "Pack up. We leave in one hour."

One hour was pushing it, but the band of seven would do it. It wasn't wise to anger Zelgadis, the men all knew that, and had begun traveling lighter and packed with more efficiency. Zelgadis had very little to concern himself with, but it was necessary to go through the motions. He didn't want them to be suspicious quite yet, so he took down the tent, folding it into the small parcel that it became when it wasn't in use. One man had dared ask about it once, and Zelgadis said it had been something he'd taken from a sorcerer. It had ended the curious looks and mumbling.

He took his time, for he didn't travel with the men. He always made his entrance later and in the guise of Rick. It worked out better that way, as he could keep an eye on the men and still see the town, learn the layout and the best potential places to hit.

His Second came up to him, looking grimly pleased. "We're packed and moving out. Today's plan is two pairs and a couple of loners. I'll get the map ready for tonight's meet-up."

Zelgadis nodded and turned to point to a man who was hefting a bag onto his shoulder. It wasn't a large bag, but it was heavier than most. Zelgadis knew why; it was full of bottles with various alcohols. "Stay with him. He was drunk in the last town, and shows signs of becoming a problem. I trust you to do what you need to if he does."

The Second bowed slightly, nodding. "Yes." Zelgadis hadn't chosen a fool for a Second. They both knew what Zelgadis was saying. It had happened before when a man had tried to betray the group for a woman. Zelgadis had left him with his woman, though it wasn't precisely certain that the man would ever be capable of rational thought ever again.

Suffice it to say that Zelgadis' Mazoku need had been fully sated that night.

The men trickled out, Zelgadis standing there near the banked campfire and watching them move through the trees towards the pass. One or two had promise, his Second was nearly perfect. Just a little more grooming, and he could offer the man a Pact and then step back and let him take over the group, leaving Zelgadis to do as he pleased, and still reap the benefits of the bandit's raids. His lips curled into a twisted smile as he considered his next layers of plans. He absentmindedly threw a spell at the fire, extinguishing it and then he stepped sideways out of the normal world and off into the Astral Plane.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

It took some time for everyone to calm down, and a sympathetic Sylphiel had to tug the bows out of the Mazoku's hair before anyone could look at him without bursting into laughter. Even still, the curls remained, and there were plenty of snickers when Xellos wasn't looking. And when he was looking.

Finally, Lina cast a snickering Diem Claw, ruffling the Mazoku's hair out of its sausage curls. The end result had Xellos looking as if he'd had a perm, but it was better than the curls. Almost.

Before anyone could ask Xellos what had happened, an older man walked up to the Mazoku, a young girl clasped firmly by the ear. He was scarlet-faced, obviously the girl's father, and furious with her as he marched her up to look at Xellos… who, Lina noted with more amusement, was turning a decided shade of green.

The moment the girl was in front of Xellos, the man took his hand off of her ear and pushed her forwards slightly. It took a beat, and then she lifted green eyes bright with tears. "I'm sorry, Xel… a Mazoku made me do it. Please forgive me?"

While Xellos was considering the irony of the truth in the girl's words, she was suddenly pushed into a bow by her father's hand at the back of her head. "I'm sorry, Master Xel. I don't know what gets into her sometimes. It won't happen again, I assure you." The man's voice was rough with anger, but there was genuine warmth in the tone.

Xellos laughed, scratching the back of his head and then waved the pair off. "Ah well… children will be children. Think nothing of it…" He knew Lina was watching, knew that Amelia couldn't believe a thing that she was seeing. Sylphiel was beaming happily, and Naga and Gourry were just shaking their heads in amazement.

After the father and daughter had departed, Gourry looked at the Trickster Priest, speaking quite seriously for the blonde swordsman. "Oh, you're good, Xellos."

The green didn't quite leave Xellos' face as he looked to Gourry. "I most certainly am _not_!" There was a flare of power, and his hair was suddenly as it ever was, straight and proper.

"So what was all that about, Xellos?" Lina asked, finally capable of looking at him without coming dangerously close to hysterics. "I mean, it's not like you to play off something and not cause trouble."

Xellos regarded the group that he'd been waiting for with a patent smile. "That is a secret, Lina." He delivered the line as if he'd been waiting the entire day at the town just to say it to her.

Instead of getting irritated, however, Lina sighed and shook her head, turning to look to Amelia. "I don't know why I bother sometimes. Come on, Amelia. Let's find the hotel and get rooms." She'd changed a bit, turned somewhat harder, and she knew that it showed in how she moved and spoke. She hadn't been given much choice.

Naga watched Lina and Amelia walk off, and she turned to look to Xellos… who looked just as dumbstruck by Lina's reaction as she felt. "Is Jedah here?" She didn't bother with pretenses; she wanted to give that Hellmaster an earful, maybe two. One for Amelia and one for Lina.

Xellos opened his eyes, looking to Naga with those odd cat-like violet eyes. "Ah… no. He sent me ahead to wait for you." It felt odd telling the truth, but he had a suspicion that Naga could be formidable when crossed. "I'm sure he'll be along after a bit."

Sylphiel had learned to ignore Xellos when he wasn't causing trouble, so she had turned to help Gourry pick up the bench and set it to rights after the girl's apology. When she heard Xellos tell Naga that Jedah wasn't with them, she nodded to herself and turned to Gourry. "We should get some supplies while we are here."

Gourry nodded, glancing back to Naga and Xellos. "Think she'll be okay with him?" He still didn't know Amelia's older sister very well, and given that, the role of guardian was still his burden to bear.

"Oh, I think she's more than capable of handling herself. He may have gotten the better of her once, but I don't think she'll let him get away with it again." Sylphiel said with her cheerful smile. "Shall we find the merchant's lane?"

Lina and Amelia had located the hotel and waited for the clerk to become available. They'd gotten in to see an older man at the counter, talking with the desk clerk in a quiet sort of voice, but Lina's hearing could pick up the conversation. He wanted to know where there was good food and she was always interested in that. She flipped a coin in the air as she waited.

Just as the man turned, Lina fumbled the coin. It landed on its side and started to roll, Lina giving chase. Amelia had to walk up to the counter herself and make the room arrangements… and hand over the room deposit out of her purse. Had Lina done it on purpose?

"Damn!" Lina muttered as she collected the coin and saw the other guest limp out of the hotel and back out to the street. She'd wanted to ask him if he knew of the bandits she was after. Oh well, he'd gotten a room… she could always ask him later. He'd probably be in the tavern later…

He'd looked familiar, too. Like someone she'd seen a long time ago and hadn't seen since. Something twitched at the back of her mind, and she shrugged and turned to follow Amelia up the stairs to the rooms. "Hey, Amelia, did that guy seem familiar to you?"

"Not nearly as familiar as you dropping your coin so I'd have to pay," Amelia replied testily, not turning back to the redhead.

Lina's face turned scarlet. "Ah… here, it wasn't intentional." She offered the coin that had been the cause of the trouble, and Amelia waved it off.

"You can pay for dinner."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Zelgadis had chosen mid-afternoon to alter his appearance and head into town, the limp coming to him now by almost habit. He carried a worn leather bag, a few random possessions within, a travel log that he'd won one evening in a game before he 'turned in' for the night, and a small kit with a comb and a razor… though the stubble that he affected belied its presence.

He'd come in by the main road and not the pass, helping a man whose cart had gotten stuck in the mudded ruts from the rain of the previous day. It cost him nothing to help, and in the end, the merchant was happy to give the limping swordsman a ride to the town, dropping him off at the hotel and promising to make sure he was stocked for his journey in the morning.

Zelgadis had every intention of being stocked for his next journey… though not in the fashion that the merchant likely had intended. Nevertheless, he thanked the man and lifted a hand as the cart pulled away, leaving him at the door of the hotel.

The door opened easily, and Zelgadis nodded to himself at the décor within the lobby. Yes, this was a town worth the time it would take to make plans. They wouldn't be able to hit it tonight, but tomorrow would be a different story.

The hotel room was a decent size, and he sat on the bed with a small smirk. He didn't truly need the bed, but it was all part of the façade. He dropped the bag on the bed beside him and reached inside it to pull out the small purse that he carried three or four silvers and a small handful of coppers from around the realm. It was enough to get him started in any card game, and not so much as to look as if he were an easy target for card sharks.

It wasn't yet late enough for any worthy games to be running in the tavern, but he could wait. He'd go, sit at the bar with a meal and a drink, buy a round and get the information that invariably flowed with the alcohol. It was the easiest way to gather information, and he was becoming the master at it.

Rising from the bed, he moved across the room silently, opening the door and stepping out into the hallway just as the door opposite his closed. Damn. Someone so close to his room might be problematic… but he could handle it as it came.

The tavern was a reasonable size, not too small, but not large enough to have its own room for games. That usually meant that the stakes were fairly low and that few, if any high-rollers came through. That was a pity, for the emotions that rolled off of a player in the high stakes were particularly good. Better when they had a lousy hand… or believed that they did.

"Evenin', traveler," the barkeep said as Zelgadis sat heavily on the stool, the picture-perfect weary older swordsman. "Haven't seen you before. What'll it be?"

"House ale, if you will. How's the stew?" Zelgadis replied, setting the purse down on the bar just within reach. Stews were generally the best food in taverns that an un-bonded swordsman would buy… filling enough without being a drain on the purse.

The barkeep grunted. "Fair to middlin' I'd say." He reached for a bottle of ale, uncorking it and placing it on the bar in front of Zelgadis. "Meat's been a bit gamey lately. Hunting isn't what it used to be."

"Is it ever?" Zelgadis countered, picking up the bottle and taking a swig. "I'll take a bowl anyway." He set the bottle down and half turned to look around the tavern as the other moved to call back to the kitchen. "Quiet place. Think an old man will find a card game to pass the time?"

The barkeep chuckled at the swordsman, completely taken in as he set the requested bowl of stew before him. "You're not that old by the looks of you. You may have seen more summers than I, but I dare say the ladies see that glint of a devil in your eyes."

Zelgadis played along, laughing good-humoredly. "For that, my man, you earn a coin." He opened the purse, taking out a fine copper and tossing it easily to the surprised barkeep, and then picked up the spoon and stirred the stew. It smelled like a hearty stew, spiced to help flavor the meat. He took a taste and nodded appreciatively, even though it didn't matter to him what it tasted like. He only ordered it for show.

"So what brings you to the area, traveler?" The barkeep asked, polishing a glass with a rag before setting it down to fill it with water for his own use. The swordsman didn't have the look of the haggard and road-weary, but his accent wasn't a local one, either.

"Rick," Zelgadis said, almost absentmindedly, as if his attentions were caught by the stew. He glanced up and crooked a grin, setting the spoon down and picking up the ale. "I'm traveling, on my way South for a new chance."

The barkeep nodded, taking a sip of his water and waving with his free hand to a new arrival. "Thought so. Might have made out a bit of a Northern Ralteague accent in there." He watched the flicker of surprise cross the swordsman's eyes, and nodded. "Had a daughter move up that way. Married a nice young man and settled down in Ambervale. That was right before the town went to hell."

Zelgadis nearly choked. Mazoku or not, Ambervale still had power over him. He covered by coughing and taking a swig of the ale again. Something, somewhere, prompted him to look to the barkeep and open his mouth. "I'm sorry for your loss." Sorry for your loss? He was losing what tenuous control he had.

He turned, and would have slipped off of the stool to leave the tavern, but for the redheaded woman who had walked up behind him with a strange look on her face. "Hey… do I know you?"


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

He didn't need a spell, didn't need to follow a hard-sought Astral trail to know where Zelgadis went. No, all that Jedah had needed to do was go to Ambervale. The ruins had been the start of it all, and Jedah knew that some part of Zelgadis would find it apt that he chose it as 'home'.

Zelgadis had created it, and it, in turn, created him. Even to Jedah, it had a twisted sort of symmetry.

Not too long ago, Jedah had bought Lina here, brought her at her command. He'd regretted it, and been immensely relieved to be called out of it with her in tow.

He hadn't been too happy to discover what Xellos had, but there hadn't been anything that he could do about it. The Heart was too well guarded by a spell that he could barely comprehend. He, unlike Lina, didn't dare touch it.

He picked his way through a level of the Tower, hearing the wind whisper through the cracks, the stones groaning against each other as the ruin moved slightly. It reminded Jedah of the sound a soul might make in anguish, an echo of what the heart might feel if it had been torn asunder.

Jedah shook his head at his own folly as he moved across, searching for any signs that Zelgadis was using this as a home base, as he suspected. What he was finding was that the tower was empty, as desolate as a heart left to try and recover when it had no desire to do so.

Echoes of memory flickered, tainted impressions of the past attempting to make themselves known. Jedah only half-listened, searching the emotions that clung in the air for something that might whisper an answer, a solution to the problem that was of his own crafting.

Zelgadis may have created Ambervale, but it hadn't been Ambervale that had created Zelgadis. No, that dubious honor belonged to Jedah. Ambervale just happened to be where Jedah had initially broken Zelgadis apart, where he had reached into a realm where he did not belong and torn open the then-chimera's heart.

His own heart contracted suddenly, the pain bringing Jedah gasping to his knees, alarm flashing in his eyes. Silence fell around him, the darkness and stillness piercing his mind with an oppressive hand. He forced his breathing to still, forced himself to focus for a moment. Why was he here, what was he doing? What right did he have to try to repair what he had done?

Fool he was, tromping through the ruins of a dead man's memory, trying to find some indication that hope still existed. A pathetic and dim emotion, hope couldn't last in the face of such powerful opposition. No heart big or small could possibly dream of overcoming these odds.

Silly, silly little boy playing at being Human, toying with things so fragile, so easily broken as a Mortal heart. He was more, he was so much more. He could create, destroy, and create again all at the whim of a thought. He was the master of mayhem, Hellmaster himself!

A rush of power brought him back to his feet, glittering with a blue as black as night. He was the power; the power was his mind, his heart, his soul. What need did he have for the pathetic mortals anymore? He had all that he needed within himself, all that he had to do was reach out and call it forth.

Wait, a thought rippled through. He'd taken that drastic step to protect Zelgadis. The youth wasn't supposed to have been taken by Rezo. Everything that Jedah had done was to try to undo what had been done.

Done by the hand of Rezo.

Under the control of Shabranigdo.

Jedah had moved against Shabranigdo.

What the hell had he been thinking?

The glimmer of thought flared, but a darker flare reached up and swallowed it whole.

Darkness.

Pain.

He gasped again, crashing hard to his knees, the force pushing him into the floor, dust billowing as the already dangerous ground threatened to give way and send him falling.

His heart seized, constricting again, and Jedah curled into himself, his impression of human form taking a position that it had not known before.

Pain lanced through him again, words echoing in the agony, words that he had to strain to hear in his own cries of anguish. He could hear the whispered words now, could hear them as if it was his own voice whispering them.

It was.

"_Too close, you're too close. She'll burn you, just like the others. Let him go, let him plan. When the time comes, crush him and take it as your own. You have the power, they trust you."_

Betrayal. Return to Shabranigdo.

Pain coursed through him again, his voice breaking under the strain, a small part of him wondering at that sound, so lonely, so anguished, so very like… Zelgadis.

Brilliant ice-blue eyes snapped open, the full power of Hellmaster bursting freely through the ruin. He'd been unprepared, hadn't sensed the trap until it had been too late. But as the blood flowed similarly, so too did magic, and Jedah's magic was close enough to Zelgadis' that he could break open the trap and set himself free.

He stared at the floor between his hands, realizing that he was on his hands and knees. He felt as if he'd been beaten both physically and mentally, felt as if every fiber of his being had been stretched to almost breaking and then snapped back into place once more. In mortal terms, Jedah was beyond exhausted and ready to fall over.

Yet, he couldn't.

He knew now, oh, how clearly he knew! Zelgadis was cunning, dangerous, a bigger threat than Jedah had wanted to admit. He was powerful beyond what he should have been, and quite coldly insane.

Jedah had to find Lina. He had to find her and warn her before it was too late. He only hoped that Xellos had decided to obey him without the necessity of orders for once and actually protect the sorceress as he had asked.

Slowly, painfully, Jedah drew himself to his feet, drew the darkness around him and left the Tower.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The remnants of the afternoon had gone by smoothly, and towards the evening, Lina managed to drag some the little group off to the tavern that the clerk had mentioned earlier. She didn't think there was much in the way of local cuisine, but at least it would be food. Naga and Amelia had begged out, opting instead to visit the café around the corner for something a touch more civilized.

Xellos had, of course, declined Lina's invitation, but indicated that he'd meet them shortly. "If you intend to leave in the morning, I should wrap up a few things here first. Go ahead and I'll… catch up with you for tea."

Lina was skeptical, but what could she do? "Fine, Xellos. But do us all a favor and try not to cause too much trouble, okay?" As she spoke, Xellos gave his little half-bow, and all she could do was to let him go off to do his own thing.

They'd gotten a table in the tavern, and Lina refrained from ranting about the lack of selection of food. They were off the beaten path, the pass between the mountains being a small one. They were lucky the town was as large as it was. So she ordered the stew in the largest bowls in the house. She started to eat, listening to the banter of her companions, pausing to offer random commentary of her own, but by and large she watched the patrons. You could learn a lot about a place by watching how people acted in a tavern like this one.

One patron in particular caught her eye, a broad shouldered swordsman with white hair and stubble. He was hunched over the bar, chatting amicably with the barkeep, taking spoon to his own bowl of the spiced stew after tossing a coin to the barkeep with a laughing comment.

She watched the barkeep polish his glass before filling it with water to drink from it, and it struck her that the swordsman reminded her of someone. Her spoon stuck in her mouth, hand on the handle, Lina thought.

Older swordsman, a ring of white hair close-cropped to his head, a day's worth of stubble… she pricked up her ears, ignoring Sylphiel's queries as she listened for the rumble of his voice and frowned. No freaking way…

But the longer she looked at him, the more her stomach flipped cartwheels. The rational mind said it couldn't possibly be, but irrational hope matched the swordsman to someone that she'd seen a long time ago.

"Hey, guys…" Lina muttered, putting her spoon down in her bowl. "That guy at the bar… the swordsman… does he look familiar to you?" She indicated across the bar and Gourry leaned sideways around Sylphiel and looked.

"Huh? Him? Gosh, I dunno, Lina," Gourry mumbled. "He does look kind of familiar… like that guy, you know, the one we fought with." As if that didn't describe half of the people they'd encountered over the years.

But that settled it. Food set aside, Lina slipped out of her chair and walked across the room, ignoring the stares from her friends. She paused when the barkeep mentioned Ambervale, but the swordsman's reaction made her move faster. She closed the distance as he put the ale down, and when he turned, she was directly behind him.

"Hey… do I know you?" She asked, watching his eyes widen in surprise. Well, his face didn't look like him… Lina felt her face redden. "Oh… er… sorry. I thought… you looked like someone I knew…" She backed up instinctively, moving out of his direct path.

Zelgadis turned without answering, reached out to pick up his purse and opened it He silently took out two silvers and looked at them in his hand for a moment as he bought himself some time to collect his thoughts. "This is for the meal," he said as the first silver clinked down. "And this is for the lady's meal," he said as the second silver joined the first.

He turned to look to the confused and embarrassed sorceress. "I am sorry that I was not who you thought. Enjoy your meal." With a faint smile, he slipped off of the stool, moving past Lina.

"Yeah… me too," Lina mumbled, turning to look after the man. "Thanks for the meal… and thanks for the memory of… Rodimus." She wasn't sure why she offered his name, just that it felt right to do so.

The swordsman paused, lifting his head slightly to regard the arch above the doorway. "My name is Rick. And you're welcome." It took every ounce of self-control that he had to maintain that steady and slow limp as he moved across the tavern and towards the door.

There was a figure in the doorway, a man who stood before him in the shadows. As Zelgadis shifted his gaze, he realized that the man's violet eyes were open and a twisted smirk was on his lips. Before he could say or do anything, Xellos stepped to the side and nodded his head. "A pleasant evening to you."

He hadn't felt anything. Did Xellos know? Murmuring something incoherent, he stepped past the Trickster Priest and limped out into the night, his thoughts swirling rapidly.

The door closed behind Xellos, and Zelgadis let out a low breath. Great, just what he needed. First Lina, then Xellos. Jedah would be along soon enough and the whole plan would go to hell, quite literally. Maybe it was time to cut the men loose…

He realized that he was standing in the middle of the road, like a human might. But he wasn't human, was he? He didn't need to worry; he didn't need to fear them. And as far as he could tell, they hadn't recognized him for what and who he was. He could lay a trap and even be there to gloat when it sprung.

With a dark gleam in his eyes, Zelgadis faded into nothingness, leaving the evening breeze to blow gently on the empty street.

Too bad he'd been seen.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

A strange silence had fallen over the redheaded sorceress as she moved back across the tavern to meet Xellos at the table. She shook her head slowly as she sat back down and looked at the stew. "I knew it wasn't Rodimus… it couldn't have been. But he looked familiar."

"I agree, Lina. He did look familiar," Xellos replied, nodding thoughtfully. There had been something about the old man, but Xellos couldn't put his proverbial or literal finger on it, as if the skin hadn't suited the man. He frowned slightly, but the thought escaped when a slight tug came at the bottom of his tunic.

He turned, looking out, and seeing no-one, looked down to where he felt the tugging on his tunic. If he'd had blood in his veins, it would have chilled at the sight of the small girl with bright eyes. "Ah, Cheri…" Enter one Holy Terror. Just what Xellos needed. "You're a little young to be in here, don't you think?"

"Master Xel… You have to do something! There's a Mazoku in the town!" It was a staged whisper, conspiratorial and as loud as a whisper could get while still being a whisper. It brought Lina and the others to a halt as they considered the absurdity of the moment.

"Now then…" Xellos said gently as he knelt to look the girl in the eyes. "What makes you think that there's a Mazoku in your lovely town?" He ignored the splutter that came out of the redheaded sorceress, ignored the muffled oath that resulted from Sylphiel's foot planting itself on Gourry's foot. His whole attention was on Cheri. What did she know?

"Don't patronize me, Master Xel! That man in the armor, the one that limps. He vanished into the air! That's a sure sign of one, I know it is!! People don't just do that!" Cheri stomped her foot as she spoke, pure childlike earnest in her voice.

That had been what Xellos was missing. His voice shifted lower as he looked up to the doorway, seeing the man in his memory. "You're right, Cheri. That's not good. Go home and stay inside, keep your father safe and don't let him leave you for a moment. Can you do that? Will you protect him?" The last sentence brought his violet gaze to the little girl's green one.

"I will, Master Xel! I swear it on Cepheid!" Cheri straightened, her worry turning to fierce resolve with the simplest act of childish will. She smiled brightly at Xellos, beaming adoration at him. "I knew it was right to tell you! You're the best priest Cepheid could have!" Before any could react, she was off like a shot, running out of the tavern at full tilt.

Xellos felt as if he were made of the finest porcelain in the world. He felt hollow, fragile, ready to tip over at any second and shatter into a million impossibly tiny shards. He knew that three pairs of eyes were fixed incredulously on him, knew the words that hung on the lips of the three who had heard the girl, knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Lina would be the one to blurt it out at him, to ask him precisely why the girl had just named him as the exact opposite to what he was. All he had to do was wait for it.

But it didn't come. Lina didn't say anything. Instead, she turned, looking to Gourry and Sylphiel for a moment before she opened her mouth. "I think that I've had enough for one night. If Amelia and Naga ask, I'm going on to my room. I… I'd rather not be disturbed, okay?"

As they watched, Lina smiled faintly and moved around the table. She paused by Xellos, not turning to look to him, not even speaking loudly. "If you expect Jedah in town any time soon, you'd better tell me now, Xellos. I don't care about whatever game you're playing here by yourself. Just tell me if Jedah is on his way."

Xellos didn't honestly know if Jedah was. "I don't know, Lina. He sent me here to meet you, but he didn't tell me what his plans were." He was feeling less like fine porcelain and more like his usual self. "But if that was a Mazoku…"

"Then he's pretty powerful," Lina finished quietly. "Neither you nor I sensed it. And that means that it was probably Zelgadis." She sighed softly and shook her head. "This isn't going to end well, Xellos. Just tell me this one thing: what side are you on in this?"

Xellos had expected to be pinned for the Cepheid Priest comment; he had not expected Lina to ignore that in favor of the bare truth of sides in a possible and admittedly probable confrontation. Surprised, he turned to look to her, his violet eyes open to study her.

She wore a mask of calm, a steady expression that he'd seen on her face before. It was that expression that hid her heart, shielded her thoughts and her emotions from the outside world, hid what she was truly feeling because she was moving through the motions and couldn't afford to feel.

"Lina… You know as well as I that this is not a simple case of sides. If this comes to pass, if Zelgadis takes the role of Avatar, if that's even possible… there are too many possibilities, too many uncertainties. There is one thing, however." Xellos said quietly, watching how she didn't look to him, didn't show any emotion at all. "Hellmaster… Jedah has forbidden me harm any of you. You, Gourry, Sylphiel, Amelia, Naga… his word stands irrevocable but by himself."

"I see," Lina replied quietly. "Then, I suppose, that is all that I can ask." She took two steps, paused, and then quietly walked out of the tavern, the door closing with a click behind her. It was a surreal sort of sound, a quietly final echo of her distanced reaction to the revelations of the evening.

And it left all three wondering what was yet to come.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

When Jedah opened his eyes, he found himself standing in the shelter of an awning that covered a porch overlooking a small street. Noises from behind him made him turn and as he realized that he'd arrived in front of a tavern, the door opened.

He shrank back into the shadows, still too weary to deal with much of anything that wasn't what he sought. He stopped when he realized that it was Lina. In relief, he stepped forwards, watching her eyes go round as she reached out to catch him.

"Jedah!" Lina gasped, stunned by how ragged and worn he appeared. "What happened to you?" Some part of her knew, understood that he wasn't remotely insane like Phibrizo had been, knew that for all the power he had, all the rank he held... he was somehow more than the concept of Mazoku that she'd had before.

She also recognized the tainted touch of the magic that clung to him.

His voice was rough when he spoke, a hint of the ragged power that had torn through him in effort to free himself from the trap that he allowed himself to walk so blindly into. "I paid a visit to Ambervale. I can't say that it was the smartest thing I've ever done… but then, most of what I've done in relation to Zelgadis has been pretty stupid." He cast the redhead a glance, twisting his lips into a weak smile as he did so, trying to play off his appearance.

Maybe she was wrong, but Lina considered herself a fairly decent judge of character. Right now, she was judging Jedah as in need of more than just rest. So she gave it all of twenty seconds worth of consideration and then she kicked him through the door and backwards into the tavern. "Sorry, Jedah. You know what they say: No rest for the weary."

Everyone in the tavern looked up as Jedah landed in a heap on the floor just inside the door, only to be picked up and dragged across the room by the tiny redhead who had only moments ago left. She dropped the young man at Xellos' feet, glaring up at the purple-haired priest of pandemonium for a moment before she reached down and smashed Jedah upside the head with a resounding thud of fist against temple.

To nearly everyone's abject amazement and speechless horror, the onslaught continued, Lina's foot flashing out to catch Jedah in the ribs as he fell sideways from the impact of her hand. The toe of her boot caught him in the ribs with a crack, and Jedah groaned softly, the sound making Xellos' eyes open, a dangerous glint starting to glow within the violet that was suddenly visible.

Jedah coughed, a deep rattling sound echoing in his lungs, and Lina back-slapped him hard, but her hand was caught on the afterswing by a white gloved hand. Xellos' grip was firm, a fierce light glittering a near-fury in his eyes. But before anyone else could react, the cough turned into a soft chuckle from Jedah as he sat up and looked to Lina in bemusement.

"It is a shame that you are not interested in something more, Lina. You'd make one hell of a Mazoku, and I would know," he said under his breath, but loud enough for her to be able to hear. She shot him a darkly dry look, but he just grinned impishly at her.

Shaking his head, he collected himself and stood, reaching out to gently remove Xellos' hand from Lina's wrist. "Ah well, it was just a little… disagreement. Nothing that I didn't deserve from my big sister," he said brightly, the youthful appearance once more in place. He'd tumbled in so abruptly and ungainly that none had been able to see his face, and he'd taken advantage of that, tucking his powers and Mazoku appearance away.

The words 'big sister' seemed to be magical, to explain it all to everyone who had witnessed the strange event... except the three humans and two Mazoku who knew the truth. Those who weren't involved turned away, returning to food and drink and other various duties that brought them to the tavern.

"Wow, Lina. I was sure I heard a rib break..." Gourry said as he looked at Jedah, who didn't look as if he was in any pain at all. In fact, Jedah looked positively flushed with energy and excitement.

"Three, actually," Jedah said with a rakish grin aimed at Lina. "She broke the first two kicking me through the door back there." He ran a hand through his hair and grinned at Sylphiel, who looked properly horrified. "My dear Cleric, you're positively beside yourself. As delicious as it is, I'm perfectly fine now, though I appreciate your empathy."

"We have more to consider than your appetite for pain and suffering, Jedah." Lina spoke quietly, her eyes veiled. "Zelgadis is here, and he's powerful enough that neither Xellos nor I could tell that he was in disguise."

That little tidbit brought Jedah to a halt, both eyebrows rising as he looked to Xellos for confirmation. When the violet-haired figure nodded, Jedah took a deep breath and looked oddly serious for the youthful appearance. "We have to be careful. He's too dangerous for us to face unprepared. Where is he now?"

Lina admitted to herself that she should have thought of that herself, but she had once again fallen prey to the bitter emotions that rose when she thought of Zelgadis being… _oh, admit it, Lina!!! He's your enemy now. He's not the man that you married. That man died at the hands of a Mazoku that Jedah destroyed._

"He walked out of the Tavern. You didn't see him because he apparently pulled a vanishing act in the street. Now that he knows we're here, he may be inclined to run." Lina replied, looking across the table to Gourry and Sylphiel, ignoring the Mazoku for the moment. What had she gotten her friends into?

A scream from outside made them all turn and look towards the outside. "Then again…"

They all ran for the door.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The scream of terror had brought the little group running out of the tavern to see Amelia cringing in absolute horror and clinging on to her sister for dear life.

Naga, for her part, was trying desperately to not laugh, eventually shoving at Amelia with exasperation. "Amelia, it was only a rat. Villages like this have them, you know…" It was taking a good deal of self control not to give into the laughter that threatened to escape her.

Lina took stock of the situation and sighed, dropping her chin to look at the stones under her feet. "A rat. I hear you scream, and come running out here, thinking the worst, and it's nothing more than a damned rat!"

Amelia and Naga froze, Gourry and Sylphiel gaped at Lina, and Xellos gave Jedah a look that spoke volumes beyond the simple closed-eyed look that it was. Lina lifted her head to look apologetically to Amelia and Naga. "I'm sorry… you don't know, I shouldn't be yelling."

"Know what?" Naga asked bypassing the affront and looking to the sorceress. Amelia, for her part, caught the look on Jedah's face and allowed the seriousness of the moment to calm her.

"Zelgadis is here. And he knows that we are too."

The percussive blast of power shook the town, ripped past Lina and shoved everyone else to the ground. Jedah leapt to his feet first, reaching out to Lina as he shouted.

"Lina, look out! That's him!"

Life went in slow motion around Lina as she turned, her eyes lifting, chin raising to bring her gaze to the figure in mid-air.

It was indeed Zelgadis; clad from head to foot in black that was close-fitting and trim. His hair was longer, loose past his shoulders, a few chin-length strands passing for bangs. But no matter how long his bangs were, they couldn't hide his eyes. Brilliant blue eyes burning as hard as diamond fire down on her, into her, through her. He lifted his hand.

Jedah leapt again, trying to get Lina out of the way of Zelgadis' attack.

But the spell passed by Lina, pushing Jedah backwards. Lina turned, looking to see Jedah land in the second tumbled heap of the night, heard the double-footfall behind her, saw Jedah's eyes widen, and she froze.

Zelgadis had landed behind her.

Lina turned, thinking fast. His spells hadn't hurt her. Why? Everyone else, even Jedah (where was Xellos?) had been pushed to the ground. Only she was left staring up at the cold blue eyes that seemed so alien, even for all their familiarity. _Zelgadis_…

For a long moment, there was nothing. She could hear the noises of her companions collecting themselves, could hear Gourry asking if Amelia was okay. She could hear Jedah telling them to stay back, that they didn't know what Zelgadis might do. But none of it made any impression on the redhead. All she could do was stand there and stare at the Mazoku who had been the man she married.

Was she always to feel this way, as if he were right there but so completely out of her reach that he might as well be dead to her? Should she grieve? Mourn? Take her shattered memory of his gentle smiles and console herself with only those?

Should she close her eyes against the memory of the man and send the Mazoku screaming into an inferno cast by her own hands, her own voice? Would she? Could she? She, who until this very moment had thought that there might be some hope, some chance at saving him, however fleeting it may have been?

But when she looked at him now, there was nothing she recognized in those eyes.

And then, it happened.

Zelgadis moved, shot forwards and down, grabbed Lina with both hands, and pulled her into him.

And vanished.

Lina was gone.

The word that Jedah spat was an old word, a language that had died before the parents of Xellos' mortal shell had been born. He ran his hand through his hair and repeated it, ignoring the looks that he was getting from the others. Xellos had vanished, Zelgadis had taken Lina… something wet hit the back of his neck and he looked up.

Oh, good. It was starting to rain.

He stood there as the rain began to fall, closing his eyes and feeling the water hit his face as he thought. He could act; he could pull rank, force Zelgadis to return Lina by Will of Hellmaster. But that would defeat the purpose and possibly give Zelgadis the final shove to becoming Avatar.

Some days it didn't pay to chew your way out of the restraints.

A tap on his arm made him open his eyes and look over to see Amelia standing there. "We should get out of the rain…" Her white blouse had gone see-through and she was trying to hide it, but failing.

Wordlessly, Jedah tugged his cloak off of his shoulders and draped it over hers. "Yeah." He felt numb as he walked towards the hotel, leading the Princess back to her friends, back to a group of mortals that he couldn't claim friendship to, couldn't begin to expect any aid from.

"You look like hell," someone to his left said. Gourry. With everything that had gone between the two of them, Gourry had been the last person Jedah had expected to say something.

"Not one of my better days, Gourry," Jedah replied, with no trace of a smile in his eyes or his voice as he moved to push open the door to the hotel and watched as the three girls moved inside. Gourry paused outside with him, and Jedah lifted an eyebrow to the swordsman.

"Out there. You tried to shield Lina." Gourry said. "You took his attack for her. And then, Amelia… in the rain." The blonde moved to take the door so that Jedah could enter the hotel.

Jedah opened his mouth "I'm not…" but the words dissolved into a sigh and shook his head instead, turning to walk into the lobby.

Behind him, Gourry nodded, his blue eyes watching the soaked Mazoku. "I know." But he said it so quietly that Jedah didn't hear.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The going had not been easy.

Lina had gone into shock for all of a quarter-second, and then she'd fought. She'd fought hard, harder than she'd fought Xellos when she hadn't known who he was. She knew who had her, knew as clear and cold as she's known that those blue diamond eyes had been his.

It hadn't worked, however, for no amount of fighting had worked. Magical attacks seemed to make no difference, physical were ignored. He was crushing her against him, and she'd had to turn her head to breathe, to open her eyes and see the spinning darkness all around her, the pinpricks of light that vanished suddenly into a blue that she'd seen before.

He released her abruptly, and she staggered backwards, coming to a wavering halt as she looked to him. Why had he simply let her go? He didn't look any less imposing than he had before in the caves, any more akin to the man that she'd married. He still reeked of Mazoku, the magic that was his to command nearly visible in the darkness of the strange room filled with… rubble. Bluish-grey tinted rock rubble.

She knew this place, knew where he had brought her. He'd brought her back to Ambervale, back to the ruins of Rezo's Tower… now his Tower. The recognition brought courage to her throat, steadied her voice as she looked to him. "You brought me to Ambervale. I know about this place, had you forgotten? I've been here; I'm the one that did this to Rezo's Tower when I destroyed the fragment of Shabranigdo that was within Rezo."  
His eyes blazed and he advanced on her, stalking her as if she were prey and he was the self-assured hunter. "That's precisely why you're here, Lina Inverse. I've brought you here to offer you to Shabranigdo."

"Greywords," Lina heard herself reply, surprised at the steel in her voice. "Lina Inverse Greywords." Giving voice to her name gave her strength, and she straightened her shoulders, chin lifting so that she could look him in the eye as he approached. "If you're going to use my name, you could, at the very least, get it right."

He stopped. Something flickered in his eyes and he stepped backwards, half turning away from her. There was a feeling, a sense of magic that flared up around her her, coupled with a glowing warmth at her chest. _Glowing… warmth…?_ Lina blinked, looking down at the necklace that was burning light through her blouse.

She tugged it out, the brilliance of the stone almost blinding. But what did it mean? She heard him snarl, looked up in time to leap backwards as he sent a bolt of something at her… which went past her, blowing a chunk out of the wall. It hadn't touched her, and by his expression, he'd expected it to flatten her.

"What are you?" He snarled, firing another burst of power at her. It took all of her willpower to remain in place, but the attack went past her without so much as touching her. For some reason, he couldn't touch her with his power. It seemed to affect her no worse than a warm spring breeze.

Lina felt her heart grow very still, felt the chill of despair creep along the edge of her soul. It was a strange calm that came over her, a bizarre sensation of detachment as she looked at the figure before her. She could see him, see all the power that he held, she could see the darkness that he wielded, see what he had become. This was not the man that she had married, this was not her Zelgadis. Her Zelgadis… and she understood.

"I am the light; I am the beacon shining in the darkness. I am that which you can never understand, never extinguish." She reached up and tugged the neckchain, drawing out the pendant to let it shine. She could feel the Heart trying to shine as well, knew that it was trying to bring forth its own luminosity.

He scoffed, laughing with a rough sharp bark. "Beacons shining in darkness? Do you have any idea of how stupid you sound?" His blue diamond gaze swept across her and he laughed again. "You? Shining with anything other than borrowed gemstones?" He tutted, wagging his finger at her in a manner reminiscent of Xellos. "Power like that will burn you, Dra-mata. You shouldn't be playing with it."

Lina hadn't expected his reaction to be amusement. She'd almost hoped that he'd have backed down at the show of powers that had once been his. "Maybe I shouldn't play with it, and maybe it will burn me. I've been burned before; I'll manage." She knew the Heart would burn her, knew that it was the key to restoring Zelgadis. A last-chance plan was forming… but she needed to make other arrangements first.

"You've got spirit. I'll give you that. And I know you claim responsibility for the downfall of many Mazoku. But what power can you truly wield, I wonder? Without your friends and your companions, what can you do?" He taunted, and Lina wondered just how unglued he was. She knew that given enough time, he could find a way around whatever shield the pendant was providing her.

She didn't want to give him that time.

Allowing the pendant to fall free, she woke the Dragon's Blood talismans with a silent spell. It was time to get crafty, to use a spell she'd thought of, created in the moment. She wasn't sure it would work. Either way, it wouldn't be easy to cast. She looked at his haughty smirk for a moment, sighed, and shook her head as she started the spell. "You who stand in Twilight's Shadow, whose hands hold sway over life and death,"

His smirk faltered as the words began to weave with magic, and the spell began to take form in her hands. It was a glittering violet-edged scarlet flame, caught between her hands as she brought them up and over her head, continuing the chant. "I call to thee, swear myself before thee! Let the forces of thine and mine be combined against the enemy that stands in our way!" HELL FLARE!!"

The flame exploded.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

"Do you understand me, Xellos? Timing is of the essence; you must not be late. No games this time."

Xellos lowered his head further as he knelt before his mistress. "Yes, my Mistress, I understand completely." His eyes were open, and he looked at the floor, seeing the cat-like pupils reflected in the obsidian beneath him. As she moved, he shifted his focus to watch her reflection rise from her seat and move to leave the room.

"Then go. And by Shabranigdo, don't screw this one up."

The little group had collected in a small common room in the lobby of the hotel after Amelia had changed into something dryer. Jedah had opted for a towel to his hair, and Gourry and the others weren't nearly so soaked.

Amelia looked at the towel around Jedah's neck and tilted her head. "Why don't you use your power?" It was blunt, but then, it was hard to be warm to someone that she knew was powerful enough to wipe the entire town they were in right off of the map if he chose it.

It was hard to miss Jedah's reaction, the soft sigh, the dropping of his shoulders. He lifted the towel and scrubbed at his hair, buying himself some time and some distance from the question. "I'm… something of an anomaly, Amelia. My creation wasn't exactly… the normal."

He'd well imagined his mother's reaction to discovering herself capable of carrying a child within her own body, could see the curiosity that was the only reason she allowed his continued growth and eventual birth.

He dragged his thoughts back to awareness, knowing that Amelia had said something and was looking at him expectantly, but unable to recall what she had said. "Um… sorry, say that again?"

"I don't understand what's different about you from other Mazoku," she repeated patiently. "You're Hellmaster. You're powerful. So why don't you just use it?" She wanted to know, wanted some reason to allow herself to like him, even just a little. She needed something to validate what her heart told her. She couldn't pin it down, but she knew that she trusted Jedah, liked him far more than she ought to, and she wasn't going to beat around the bush any longer.

He lowered the towel again, sighed, and ran his fingers through damp hair. "It's who I am, Amelia. I wasn't always Hellmaster. I was born into this world, an impossibility born to an improbability. I was the son of a Mazoku Lord and a human who dared to cross the boundary and become Mazoku."

Silence ruled the room as Naga and Sylphiel exchanged glances, but opted to say nothing, simply waiting to hear for themselves what the ultimate meaning of this explanation would be.

"My mother banished my father for the impertinence of giving her a child in such a… normal and otherwise thought impossible manner, and raised me as a curiosity and not much else. I was… unbalanced, to say the least. I had power, I had raw power. But I had no finesse, no control over what my power did. I was rampant, wild. I'm lucky she didn't destroy me outright." Jedah shook his head, speaking quietly, wondering the entire time why he was doing so.

"In the end, it was my father who taught me the control, taught me how to be more than a wildling. He came to me, years later, meeting me and giving me that which I had lacked completely: a heart." He kept it to himself, the fact that he'd reached into Terim and tore the still-beating organ free, watched as it glittered and dissolved into his hand, felt the glowing burn as a strange sensation spilled through him, filling him with things he'd never felt before.

"It was only then that I learned temperance and control. I learned—" His breath was pulled from him, his power, his very essence pulsing with something he hadn't felt before. He was on his knees in that instant, lost in the dichotomy of feeling weak and powerful at the same time, gasping for breath when he had too much air to breathe. His head spun, the world reeled, and he felt as if he'd been stretched across an open space until he'd nearly broken, and then snapped back into solidarity.

Amelia was beside him, kneeling next to him, her hands on his shoulders, shaking him gently. "Jedah, Jedah?" He'd gone so pale so suddenly, she'd never seen a Mazoku react to anything like that. He'd almost vanished before them, nearly faded from existence before he solidified and fallen to his knees.

He looked up at her, the pupils of his pale blue eyes gone suddenly cat-like, elongated and thin instead of round and full. There were miniscule fangtips biting into his lower lip, and he was fighting to breathe, fighting to understand what had happened. His magic had been tapped, and he could feel who had done it. "Lina," he whispered, "Lina called my magic. She cast… she cast…" It came crashing into his mind. She'd created a spell that had used his magic. It hadn't even occurred to think that it was possible, so he hadn't prepared.

"I'm okay," Jedah said quietly, collecting himself, his eyes fading back to normal as she watched. "I know where Lina is and I'm going to go get her. Just stay here and I'll be back as soon as I possibly can." He smiled faintly, looking to her bright blue eyes and then he looked up to Gourry. "Keep them safe."

Before Gourry could reply, Jedah faded from sight and touch, leaving Amelia grasping empty air. Her hands fell to her lap, and she sat there, silent, staring at the emptiness where Jedah had been. She had no answers, only new questions to add to the ever-growing list. When Gourry knelt beside her, she turned her head to look at him. "Do you trust him?"

Gourry answered almost immediately, finding that he didn't need to think it over before he answered. "Yes, I do." As he nodded, he glanced at Sylphiel and Naga, both of whom looked concerned, not just for Lina, but possibly Amelia and Jedah as well. It wasn't hard to tell that the younger girl had fallen in love, and they all hoped that it would work itself out. But just like with Zelgadis and Lina, only time would tell.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The magical flare that swept across the room had been violent, a literal hellacious flare of scarlet edged with violet, a fury born of wild desperation drawn from within the realm of Hell itself.

Unfortunately, it did nothing to Zelgadis, as Lina discovered when the afterflash cleared. He stood there, unharmed, a relatively bemused expression on his face. "While I'll admit that your little… display was… colorful, it was…" he smirked, lifting both hands to indicate that he was unharmed. "Highly ineffectual."

_Oh… hell_. Lina thought, stepping backwards. How long could the pendant protect her under a full onslaught of power? She could throw up her own protective barrier, but how long would she last against him?

"I can't harm you with magic. Not yet, at any rate." He smiled thinly, lowering his hands and looking at her with half-lidded eyes. "So in the meantime, I'll just have to figure out how you work. Such a brave little redhead, there must be something that scares you."

_Yeah, seeing you like this,_ Lina thought, glaring up at him as he approached. He couldn't use magic against her, but nothing had ruled out touch. And she knew that he'd been deceptively strong before he'd… changed. She really didn't want to know how strong he was now. She backed up again, watching his brilliant eyes, trying to read anything in them.

And came to a sudden and mind-stunning halt as she ran into something soft and yielding.

"I know, Lord Zelgadis. Shall I provide you with a demonstration?" The voice was soft, insidious and chilled, filled with dark promises of terror and endless fears playing against each other. Gloved hands caught the slender sorceress, holding her fast as the figure bent and purple hair fell against her cheek. "I know exactly what scares her."

"Xellos!" Lina hissed, her eyes widening as her heart skipped two beats and began to race. He had her so tightly that she didn't think she could break free without using magic against him, and with him standing so close to her, she'd get caught in the flareback. The last thing she needed was to be injured or worse by her own magic.

White gloved fingers traced the cheek that didn't have his pressed against it, followed the line of her jaw from ear to chin in a familiar gesture. She struggled against him, fighting the flash of fury mixed with fear that welled within her, but he could feel it, lifted violet eyes to see that the blue diamonds had registered it as well. The emotions that Lina was trying to suppress were intoxicating, and Xellos smiled. "Do you like that? There could be so much more…" It wasn't clear who he was speaking to, but it had the desired result with Lina.

She fought hard, just as she had in the Astral, but this time he was ready for it. He'd used the rescue as the dry run, used it to learn how she'd move, how she'd fight. She was so stupid! How could she have thought that Xellos was on anyone's side but that of the Mazoku? "Get off of me, Xellos. I'm not yours and I never will be." Anger was starting to filter through the fear, to burn it away and replace it with the same determination that had called the Laguna Blade down on Garv.

Zelgadis looked amused at her efforts, folding his arms to watch the show that Xellos was providing. The emotions coming from the sorceress were indeed delightful, richer than anything he'd managed to get out of the countless villagers that band of mortal bandits had terrorized. This was well worth the trouble of grabbing her, and well worth the keeping. He stepped forwards, reaching out to grab her chin with his hand. He'd felt fear, he'd felt anger. Now he wanted to feel pain.

A bolt of power shot across the room, slamming into Zelgadis and sending him flying into the wall before he could put his hand on her chin. "The party is over, Zelgadis. Xellos, bring Lina and let's go." Jedah had been relieved to see that Xellos had managed to catch her, had managed to put himself directly where he could protect Lina if needed. The method of Lina's rescue had disturbed him, but there was always a reason for how Xellos acted.

Xellos turned his head, looking to Jedah with a smirk. "No, I don't think so, Hellmaster. You forget that I am not yours to command. You broke that link." His grip on Lina tightened as he forced her to turn, to look to Jedah and see his altered appearance. "One last look, and then we go."

Jedah stood there, his hair long and as black as night, falling freely past his shoulders and down his back to dust the purple and gold trim on his tunic. His eyes had changed too, light blue eyes as clear as sky had taken on many attributes of a cat, including elongated pupils. Unmitigated fury flared brilliant in those eyes, and he lifted his hand, looking not at Lina, but Xellos. "Enough. Give her to me, Xellos." That voice was as soft as night, as silken as ice and twice as cold. There was an unspoken promise in his words, and it chilled Lina.

Xellos knew that Jedah had caught Zelgadis off-guard, and therefore had managed to temporarily incapacitate him. He wouldn't have any backup from that corner, so he had to gamble. Jedah wasn't likely to attack him while he still held Lina, because he knew that no matter what Jedah was, he held to his word. And as he'd promised not to harm Lina… "No, I don't think so. Say goodbye, Lina."

The blast was completely unexpected. Scarlet, blue and violet tore past Lina's ear, ripping into Xellos, forcing him to release her. She fell, Jedah's attack missing her completely as it continued on to burn into Xellos, whose violet eyes opened and locked with Jedah's light blue gaze. Anger, pain, fury, and desperation flickered through the violet before they faded to nothing in the onslaught of power.

Silence fell.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

It had been silent as Lina stood and looked at Jedah. It remained silent as he offered her his hand and pulled her into a fierce embrace when she took it. When he released her, they were standing in the common room where Jedah had left the others. Their arrival was startling to the others, for they hadn't expected him to be gone such a short period of time.

It was even more surprising to see how he'd been clinging to Lina, as if his existence depended on the embrace. It told Amelia that there was something wrong, and she moved towards the pair, her mouth opening. "Jedah…?"

Those winter blue eyes lifted, his gaze touching hers for a moment before he vanished into the air and left the group in the room staring at emptiness once more.

Lina shook, her hands clasped to her mouth, color drained from her face as the puzzle pieces fell in place. "Xellos." Her voice was muffled and she lowered her hands to her stomach as she looked to Amelia. "Xellos betrayed him. He grabbed me… Jedah…" She licked her suddenly dry lips and clutched her hands tighter as she whispered the words. "Jedah destroyed Xellos."

It had been clear that Lina was in shock, and Sylphiel took over, leading the redhead off to her room, talking to her softly and assuring her that they'd do everything that they could to help.

Gourry grabbed a chair and looked at Naga and Amelia. "This can't be good. I'm sitting watch in Lina's room. It might be smarter for us all to bunk up tonight." Without Jedah, Gourry knew he was the first line of defense.

Naga nodded, looking to Amelia. She knew that Lina would be taken care of, but her sister… "Amelia?" Her sister was pale, her hands balled into fists at her sides. It was a look that Naga had seen before, generally preceding an explosion of determination.

Sure enough, the bubble burst.

Amelia looked up to Naga, her eyes blazing with the determination that Naga was afraid of. She turned to Gourry, nodding. "Mister Gourry, I think that's an excellent idea. Naga, you go gather blankets and pillows and check on Lina. I'm going to…" Her voice trailed off, and she turned away. "I'm going for a walk." She moved before either Naga or Gourry could reach for her, stepping out into the lobby area and heading for the door.

"She's going to look for Jedah." Naga said quietly, watching her sister leave the hotel.

"Poor kid," Gourry agreed, looking after the princess.

"You don't hate him, do you?" Naga asked, her gaze shifting to the swordsman. She'd seen him hang back when they escaped from the rain, seen Gourry speak with Jedah. She had a good inkling of how people related to each other, and she suspected that Gourry had accepted, if not forgiven Jedah for being more than Zelgadis' brother.

Gourry hefted the chair a bit, and then turned and looked to Naga. "He's not the Mazoku I expected him to be. Come on; let's get up to the room. We can talk more there."

It hadn't taken Amelia long to find Jedah. She'd remembered what he had said that morning on her balcony, and cast a Ray Wing to find the perfect perch. The 'perfect perch' had been the bell tower she'd spotted when they'd first come to town, and she'd headed for it, landing quietly behind him.

"It's not safe to be with me right now," Jedah said quietly, his voice silken with power. He'd wanted to be alone, but he couldn't leave Lina at risk from Zelgadis. He couldn't leave the area, but he hadn't thought Amelia would come after him.

"I don't care about that," Amelia replied softly, shaking her head as she moved towards him. She didn't care. She knew who he was, knew what he was. And somehow she knew that it didn't matter. Not to her.

"I'm only likely to hurt you, Amelia," he replied, staring out over the world, his Mazoku gaze burning a hole into the sky. If only she'd go away and leave him alone. He couldn't trust himself right now. Not after… Xellos.

"I don't care about that," she whispered, reaching out to embrace him from behind, cheek against his hair, her hands flat against his chest, hugging him to her. She felt him stiffen, felt his pulse leap… pulse. A heart. She held her breath and could hear his heart beating.

He moved, turning and stepping slightly out of her embrace as he looked to her with those catlike light blue eyes. "So now you know." He was an aberration, a curiosity. He was the Hellmaster, a Mazoku with a heart. An improbability born of what had been thought impossibility.

And then she kissed him.

It happened fast, too fast. He shoved her against the wall, hands to each side of her, pinning her arms at her side, holding her in place. Amelia couldn't breathe; he was pressed against her and every attempt to inhale only pressed her closer to him. His head lowered, his lips were right there on her ear, his breath warm against her skin.

And then, almost just as fast, Jedah had let go of her, backed away and turned as if to leave her in that breathless moment of emotional turmoil. He'd captured her only to turn away and leave.

"Please... don't..." she whispered, moving, reaching out to catch his hand and try to draw him back to her. "Stay... with me... tonight?" Just tonight, that was all she would ask for. It was all she dared to ask for. The morning would draw new lines in the sand, new battles to be fought. But tonight... Amelia wanted tonight.

"I can't." His voice was so soft, so close to a whisper below her hearing. "I want to... oh how I want to. But you... and me... it can never be." In a flash, Jedah turned again, pinning her once more, his lips pressed against hers in a desperate kiss that wanted to last so much longer than it did.

She could feel the heat, feel the hardness of his body against hers, see the passion and fire warring with the pain and sadness in his eyes. She knew that he wanted to stay, longed to stay.

And then he was gone once again.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Sylphiel had convinced Lina to sit on the bed, and when Gourry and Naga arrived, she was in the process of trying to get Lina to tell her what had happened. The Cleric wasn't getting very far, and she looked up at Naga with her clear green eyes, seeming to tell the older companion that she needed help.   
"Hey, Lina?" Naga asked softly, nudging the smaller woman in the arm. "I'm going to bother you until you tell me what happened, so you may as well spit it out and save us both the trouble." Blunt as always, Naga had found that it was the best way to get Lina to talk. She wasn't overly surprised when Lina's lips twitched but failed to find the smirk.  
"I'm... okay, really. Jedah just surprised me. I mean, they were lovers... and he just cast something... it blew right past me and dissolved Xellos." Lina's voice was steady, quiet, a thing of contemplation and a touch of fear. "If he's capable of doing that... and he said that Zelgadis was possibly stronger than he was..." Crimson eyes lifted to look intensely at Naga's blue ones.  
"I don't know what I can do to protect us from Zelgadis if it comes down to it." He sat up, groaning as awareness slammed into his head much as the wall had from the impact of Jedah's attack. Damn Hellmaster. He had no position in that battle, no reason to get involved. That redhead was a mortal, and unless... that must have been it. "He wanted her for himself," he muttered darkly, rising and looking around the rubble in the room.  
"No, I didn't," a reply came from the shadows, and Jedah stepped out, looking at Zelgadis. "Lina belongs to another man, a man of integrity and honor. A man who gave her his heart in order to protect her. A man who willingly sacrificed himself to the Mazoku that he would become."  
Zelgadis snarled at Jedah, blue diamond eyes narrowing as he felt Jedah's power swirl around him. "I can best you, Hellmaster. I can destroy you and then there will be nothing that could possibly stop me. I could become Avatar, take the mantle and the power of Lord Shabranigdo himself."  
"And be destroyed in turn by the Cepheid Knight," Jedah countered, folding his arms, allowing his magic to settle around Zelgadis. "And while I have to admit that you aren't tops on my 'favorite people' list right now, I certainly can't let you be destroyed."   
Zelgadis smiled, his lips thin and closed. It was a smile that did not reach his eyes, and felt far more sinister than amused. "And what are you going to do about it? What can you possibly expect your words to accomplish?" He could feel the chains of Jedah's power, could sense the tendrils of magic leeching into him with tiny little hooks to hold him in place. It amused him to let Jedah think he was succeeding, so he stayed where he was.  
"I don't expect my words to accomplish anything." His magic dropped, vanished as if it had never been, and Jedah stood there with his arms wide, his hands open, and palms visible. "Fine, I give in, Zelgadis. I, Hellmaster Jedaikun, yield. Come, end it and be done with me. We will not see the same on this, so it must be done."   
There had to be a trap. Magic swept clear, washed over Jedah, sensing, seeking, and finding nothing. Nothing but the almost obscene impossibility of... the blue diamond eyes glittered as Zelgadis realized. "Yes, I think I shall. You're an aberration, a curiosity that never should have been." He strode over, reaching out unerringly, fingers touching Jedah on the chest.  
Jedah tensed, gritted his teeth, tried not to flinch, but failed. "Just. Do. It." He spat, his winter blue eyes glaring brilliantly at the lackadaisical way that Zelgadis moved. "Do it before I change my mind and destroy us both along with this miserable ruin." It wasn't an idle threat; Jedah had every intention of wiping it all off the world if he had to.

The pain was excruciating, agonizing, beyond any that he had ever felt before. He could feel Zelgadis' hand reach into his chest, could feel the fingers grasping, searching. _Finding_.

He couldn't fall to his knees, couldn't gasp for air. The world... no, the Worlds went rushing around him, agony sapping the strength out of him with a long sound of wind that was his own voice trying to give sound to the torment. The pain washed around Jedah, his vision clouding, colors dancing madly on the edge of his mind as darkness swirled sickeningly in the center.   
He fell to the inner vertigo, felt his awareness drawn out, felt his mind cast wild and free for a moment, and then it was gone, blissfully and completely gone as Zelgadis lifted his hand away from Jedah's chest, something warm and glistening cradled in darkened fingers. Success.

Jedah fell to his knees, his winter blue eyes clouded and dull. His magic was fading, dissipating like a cloying scent on the breeze as Zelgadis turned his attention to the object in his hand. This was the key, the impossibility. And it was his.  
It glittered, shimmered, shifted and dissolved into his hand, filling him, flowing over him with an almost golden ecstasy. Power coursed through him like liquid gold fire, burning clear through the darkness, clear through the madness, bringing with it crystal clarity. This was what he had been missing, the sum total, the answer to-

Magic convulsed and twisted, power building in a fierce rush that culminated in an explosion that ripped through the tower. It burned everything away, leaving only the black-clad figure with his arm outstretched hanging in mid-air.

The figure drifted to the ground, as slowly as a falling flower-petal, landing in a shallow indent that was all that remained of the rubble that had been Rezo's tower. It was silent, deathly still and claustrophobic in its vast expanse of nothingness. He lowered his hand and looked around at the destruction that had been wrought with a nod. It was just as it should be.

And then he vanished.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Lina's little announcement had come just as Amelia entered the room. She paused, hearing that, and then sighed. "If that's the case, Lina, then you know the only thing you have left. It's the only spell that you know will work."

Lina turned to look to Amelia, seeing the same bleak acceptance in the younger girl's eyes. They may have been at odds before, but Lina knew they were far closer in spirit now than they had ever been. "I know, Amelia. But the world can't afford to have the Lord of Nightmares unleashed on it. Even Zelgadis on a rampage is better than the Golden One dissolving everything."

"There is another possibility," Sylphiel began. When all eyes shifted to her, she flushed scarlet, but continued. "Some believe that the rumors of the Avatar of Shabranigdo are simply rumors. But others believe that it is a possibility, that the Avatar could return the power of Shabranigdo to the world."

An uncertain murmur rose up as Amelia, Lina and Naga all opened their mouths, but Sylphiel lifted her hand and raised her voice. It startled them all into silence. "There are Artifacts, items that were crafted and held aside for the possibility. No-one knows if they will work. But they exist. We may be able to use them."

Lina nodded thoughtfully, reaching into her cloak. "And there's this…" Her voice trailed off as her fingers felt the empty pocket. "What? Where did it go? The Heart… I had it in my cloak… it's gone!" Her stomach sank as she realized that it must have fallen out of her cloak in the Tower.

"It's in the Tower. It's the only place that it could be. It had to have fallen out when Jedah destroyed Xellos. I fell… rolled…" She didn't notice the effect her words had on the others, largely because she was still hunting in her cloak, desperately hoping it had landed in another pocket. "Damn it!" Lina looked up to see everyone staring at her as if she'd suddenly grown wings or something. "I told you that when I came back. I told you that Jedah had destroyed him."

"We heard," Naga replied quietly. "I think we all thought you were in shock." If Jedah had destroyed Xellos… She looked across to Amelia. Her sister's eyes were bright, her chin lifted as she struggled through knowledge that she didn't want to accept. "Amelia…?"

"Jedah said that he wasn't safe anymore. That we shouldn't be near him, that he was only likely to hurt us." True, he had said 'her', but that didn't matter right now. "I learned…" She paused, shaking her head. "I learned more than he wanted me to. He was planning something, but I didn't get the chance to figure out what it was." She could tell, could feel it in the desperation that pressed his lips against hers.

"He didn't have anything else to lose." The voice was Gourry's, the words strangely framed by the momentary silence. "He'd already lost it all." He moved the chair out of the way and walked over to look at the women. "When I confronted him, back when Lina was hurt, he was almost cradling Xellos. If he's had to destroy the one that he loved…" Those blue eyes, usually so innocent and open lifted to Sylphiel, and then he looked to Lina. "He'd lost everything." There was nothing more dangerous than a man who had lost everything… or perceived that he has lost everything.

"Gourry, I watched him lift his hand and release some sort of spell that didn't touch me, but it hit Xellos full on. He let go… it didn't feel like he could keep hold of me. I didn't see what happened, but I felt it. And the look in Jedah's eyes…" She knew now how she had looked when Zelgadis was gone. When she'd clung to Jedah in desperation some scant few days ago? No… a month… It had been a month since Zelgadis vanished.

Silence filtered through the room, and then Lina lifted her head. "The Heart didn't fall out of my pocket. Jedah took it. He had to have. He knew better than any of us what it was, and he knew how to use its powers. It was guarded, though, with that trap that Zelgadis had set on it…"

That trap had nearly killed Lina once, tore Xellos in half, and had possibly sprung on Jedah… the original target of the spell. Amelia's breath caught in her throat, and she forced herself calm as she spoke. "Then we must accept the probability that it has done what it was intended to do. The only thing we can do now is prepare for the reasonable eventuality of the Avatar of Shabranigdo."

Lina lifted her head and looked to Amelia sadly, but before she could say anything, there was a clatter outside in the hallway. Everyone looked to the door, but Gourry was who moved, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other lifting to the door handle. It was silent as the blonde moved out into the hall, and then Gourry's voice was clearly heard in exclamation. "Hey, are you okay?"

Sylphiel and Lina managed to hit the door at the same time, even though Lina had started from a seated position on the bed. Amelia and Naga were directly behind them, and all four came to a skidding halt when they came up next to Gourry, who was kneeling next to a prone figure on the floor of the hallway.

"Gourry… roll him over." Lina said quietly, her heart in her stomach. His brown hair was familiar, slightly longer than his collar, askew from his collapsing. She felt as if she knew the jawline, knew the cheekbones and the shape of his nose as Gourry put the sword down to roll the young man over onto his back.

"You should back up, Lina. All of you." Gourry said, not entirely convinced that the man that he suspected this was wouldn't leap up and attempt to blast them all to the far ends of the world with an attack. As they did so, Gourry began to roll the figure over.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

When he opened his eyes, it was with a low groan. Gods, but he felt like he had taken the rough end of one of Lina's Dragon Slaves. Things swam in and out of his vision, and he lifted a hand and reached randomly for one of them, catching hold of it. It jerked back and away, as if it was startled, and he frowned, trying to clear his vision by sheer force of will.

It wasn't so easy, and he hissed in irritation at his lack of ability. This shouldn't have been an issue with him; he shouldn't have had this trouble. His hand fell back to his side and he lay there, staring upwards into the dim light overhead. Light? At least it wasn't darkness. He'd been there, that deep eternal darkness that closed all around him, tried to swallow him, to drown him in nothingness.

Just lying here looking up at the light was better than that. It was better than going mad… unless he'd done that and now he was not just lying there, but tied up. Except… tied up shouldn't have worked on him. He concentrated, reaching out with his thoughts, feeling around himself, trying to decide what was going on.

Magic convulsed, twisted. He felt the build-up, felt the tension in the air like the heavy weight before the first clap of thunder before a storm. But he'd been powerless, still lost to the pain that had torn through him when Zelgadis had pushed his fingers into his chest.

He convulsed at the memory, trying to ball up, failing to move more than a mere flinch. Gods, it had hurt. It had felt as if his entire being was on fire, each motion of Zelgadis' fingers had set off ripples of pain, left him bereft of speech, of movement. He had known it wouldn't be a useful pain, but he hadn't expected it to nearly completely incapacitate him.

And the power that had pulsed in Zelgadis… that ripple that had warned him of the upcoming explosion… it had warned of something that he couldn't have survived on his own. So how had he survived? How had he managed the impossible once again? It couldn't have been something so convenient as a rescue. There wasn't anyone to rescue him.

"That was a very brave and very, very foolish thing that you did, Jedah." Her voice was soft, a whisper. He could feel her hand on his forehead, and the blurry figure of his mother swam into view. "Your heart still beats, but I'm afraid that you'll carry a scar from now on."

"Mother…" Jedah whispered, his voice raspy from screaming that he didn't remember. He picked up his hand, lifted his fingers to her hand on his forehead, felt how cool her skin was. "How… am I… still here?"

She chuckled softly, brushing his hand back down with hers. "You are my son, Jedah. No matter your silly obsession with mortals, your incomprehensible desire to be like them, I prefer to see you live." She moved to his side, lifting her gaze to look across the room, and then she looked back down to him. "You are weak yet, my son. Close your eyes and rest."

Across the room was quite a sight. A human had been brought, a murdering monster of a mortal, sick by their standards. Zelas had arranged for his 'liberation' from the dungeon he'd been hanging in just to teach him what was truly sick. Of course, she planned to do the torture herself to ensure that he provided the most possible range of emotions for Jedah to feed upon.

The things a mother did for her children.

Jedah closed his eyes as he heard her footsteps, listened to the rattle of a chain and the clear growl of a low human voice. It didn't take long for the emotions to wend their way across the room and begin to filter into him, though at first, they were weak and pitiful. Zelas, however, was a master at her craft, and soon the mortal was shedding terror like a waterfall.

At first, Jedah resisted. He'd gone willingly to challenge Zelgadis; he'd known what was coming. He'd almost embraced it, welcomed the darkness that had followed the pain that he couldn't mask, couldn't explain. But memory flickered, the faintest impression of an arm around him, a sensation of magic flowing into him, saving him, pulling him out of danger.

He'd been saved from the Tower.

And he wanted to know why.

The human's emotions washed over him, and he gave himself to them, allowing the depths of his being to be flooded. He felt the anguish, tasted the pain, rose and fell with the emotions as they coursed around him like a raging river, ebbing and flowing with the tide of pain.

Zelas was good; she was exacting the most excruciatingly delicious of emotions from the mortal now, rich and full in form and value to Jedah. She could see Jedah healing, see the pallor fading and the wound in his chest healing. She knew what had caused that wound, knew both what had been placed and what had been removed. Jedah was foolish, yes. He had been very foolish to have tried, and amazingly lucky to have survived it.

But then… she knew how he'd survived it, knew because she had given permission for action to be taken. One day, she knew, there would be a reckoning for allowing hearts to move and intervene, and in time, the plan would take a different turn and she might have to take a different stand.

_But for now,_ she thought, _I do what needs to be done. It is all the Plan_.

The mortal's death was convulsive, a last explosion of feeling and pain coupled with ultimate desire denied. It hit Jedah, bursting over him, leaving him gasping for breath, his own heart racing with an echoed need for… something. Something… his eyes opened and he sat up, casting a feline glance and a dark smile towards his mother.

As Jedah faded from sight, Zelas smiled thinly. He would find the rest of what he needed, she knew. _Take him back, I'm done here. _And she left the spotless room, the mortal's shell pristine, untouched, no trace of the torture she'd exacted.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Gourry grunted in dismay as the face of the man on the floor was revealed. As he'd feared, it was indeed the missing Zelgadis, though he looked nothing akin to the Mazoku they'd seen in his stead not too long ago. Instead, he looked more like the man he'd seen standing in the ballroom only a month ago, dancing with Lina as if there were no cares in the world.

His face was pale, cheeks drawn and his eyes were closed, a deathly pallor about his features that scared Lina far more than she cared to admit. She watched in a numb sort of daze as Sylphiel moved closer and knelt beside Zelgadis to cast a spell, talking mostly to herself. "He doesn't feel like that Mazoku we saw before… He's unconscious; we should get him in the room…"

Lina followed as Naga pulled her back, allowing Gourry to roll Zelgadis up onto his shoulder and carry him into the hotel room. It was an afterthought that made Lina pick up Golunova as she moved towards the door, but she paused for a moment, unable to enter, instead stuck in the archway, looking into the room with her lower lip in her teeth.

"Lina? What is it?" Naga asked quietly as she closed in behind the redhead. "Is something wrong in there?" She peered over Lina's shoulder, expecting the worst, but only seeing Gourry set Zelgadis on the bed and Sylphiel worriedly place her hand on the downed man's shoulder. Amelia said something quietly that Naga couldn't hear, and she saw Sylphiel shake her head slowly in reply to whatever Amelia had asked.

"This is too easy, too convenient, Naga. There's always a price for this sort of thing… and I haven't paid it." Lina looked to her older companion for a moment, her eyes steady and jaw set. She knew what Naga would say, knew that the older woman would shake her head and way something quiet and poignant dredged up from her random observations over her wanderings.

But Naga said nothing.

Naga knew that there wasn't anything that she could say. As long as Lina believed that there had to be some sort of payment in exchange, then she would hold to that. No matter how Naga wanted to shake her into seeing sense, this time it just wasn't going to work. Instead, she reached out and took the sword from Lina. "You'd better go in and see him, Lina."

As Naga spoke, Lina turned to look into the room and see Gourry and Sylphiel look at each other and then across to her. Amelia made to move around the bed, but she stopped herself and just looked down. She knew how Lina felt.

A moment passed, and Lina found her feet carrying her over to the bed so that she could look down on the unconscious face of the man who resembled her husband. She stopped at the side, looking down, tracing his jawline with her gaze, across his cheekbone, up to the closed eyes that she knew too well.

Gourry, Sylphiel, Naga and Amelia watched as Lina moved as if in a dream, each motion slowed and careful. Sylphiel and Naga each found that each was holding her breath, waiting for the inevitable eye-opening and leap into powerful being as the potential trap sprung. Gourry was ready for it too, though he didn't need to hold his breath to be ready.

Only Lina seemed oblivious to the potential danger, and instead of being prepared for the worst, she seemed lost in his appearance. She lifted her fingers, lightly touching the few strands of hair that played at his cheek, silently wishing that he would open those eyes and look at her so she could see who he was. She wanted to know what had happened, what he was… _who_ he was.

That's what it came down to in the end. Was he the man that she had loved, or was he a half-mad Mazoku with such powers that she would be forced to destroy him? Her stomach churned at the thought, and she pushed past Naga, shoved open the door and ran out into the hallway, heading for outdoors where she could collect herself and breathe.

Those left in the room were of varied emotions. Naga had known that Lina would run, had known that the redhead who could stare down the world's worst demon wouldn't be able to look at the still form of the man she loved. "I don't know what's worse. The fact that he looks like the Zelgadis she loves, or that we know what he is."

Amelia looked at her sister in shock, her blue eyes widening as she replied. "What difference does it make? If he's Zelgadis…." It dawned on her what she was saying, and she smirked softly. "I'll go find her." She had her answer now, but why was it that it had to come at the cost of Lina and Zelgadis' happiness?

"We'll do everything we can, Amelia. I don't think that he's quite the risk that he used to be." Sylphiel said, both hands on Zelgadis' chest as she cast a spell to sense what was amiss. "Besides, Gourry dear is here to keep an eye on him."

Neither Amelia nor Naga thought that Gourry would be much good against a Mazoku of the caliber that Zelgadis had shown the capacity to become. But then, they knew that Sylphiel knew it too. "Go on, Amelia. I'll help here," Naga said softly, moving across the room to hand Gourry the sword.

It took another few moments of Amelia watching the four of them before she nodded quietly and turned to step out of the room. She wouldn't run after Lina, no, that would make it too much of a chase. She wanted to follow Lina, but to also give the other woman enough time to gather herself, to collect her shattered wits and regain rational thought.

Whatever was ahead of them wouldn't be easy, Amelia knew, but she couldn't imagine that it would come down to Lina put against Zelgadis in battle. She'd seen that Zelgadis' magic didn't touch her in the center of the town. Her only question was whether or not there was enough of the man who cared about Lina left to count on.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

There were times when one simply couldn't deny the truth of one's existence. Right now was one of those times for Jedah. He needed the emotions, needed the pain to restore him, and needed the touch of twisted delight that all Mazoku fed from so that he could rebuild what had been lost. He had to set the illusion of Mortality aside, had to return to his existence as a Mazoku as he had once before when facing Zelgadis in the still-burning Ambervale.

He needed to heal before he could return to Lina and the others, before he could retake his unofficial role as protector of a soul that had become inexplicably entwined with his own. And that, of course, meant feeding off of the pain of others. As distasteful as he sometimes found it, right now it was the sole key to his survival.

His mother had arranged for his rescue, had started him on the road to recovery, but he needed to finish it himself. He had to fill the nearly-empty well within him, to dance in the wild and madcap maelstrom of human emotion and draw it into himself. Only he knew the ultimate way to bring some solace to his being without injuring his own fragile and almost impossible heart.

He'd learned it, long ago, the secret to his fulfillment, and the one thing that could bring his world rising to a crashing high of emotion and bring him to completion. As bizarre as it was, it was an echo of himself, a harkening back to the memory of his childhood. It had been accidental, a discovery that left him breathless with wondrous desire to take every chance that he'd been able to and recreate it over and over for his delight.

It was the pain of a child who had lost everything and there was nothing that could be done but offer mewling words of comfort and fragile physical embraces that weren't familiar. It was that ache of loss, that anguish of survival. It was the solid realization of being utterly Alone.

Once upon a time, while still little more than a Wildling, Jedah had torn free from the shadowy boundary and single-handedly shattered two handfuls of lives just to experience the feelings over and over again. It was Terim's heart that brought the understanding crashing around Jedah, burning it into him that he was only recreating the hell that he himself was living within.

After that, Jedah had taken to finding events that created themselves, a series of circumstances that left children without family, home, or a single soul to wonder what would happen to them. He'd learned that he could feed from their emotions without being the cause of them, and it made it even sweeter though it sometimes tried to tear at the heart that beat enigmatically in his chest.

And tonight Jedah had found just such a child.

The house had been burning; the farm had been long ablaze when Jedah had arrived. He hadn't caused it, no, he hadn't needed to. Nature and lightning had done the dirty work for him. He'd found the child alone in the burning wreckage of the house, caught him up into his arms and pulled him free to safety. The parents were dead, burned minutes before Jedah had arrived. It had been the echoes of pain that he'd followed to find the house.

He stood there with the child in his arms, a slight thing with no more than nine years of life to his name. And yet, as any child knows, this one knew beyond all hope of dream that his parents were gone. And his tears were like a beautiful salve on Jedah's wounds; his anguished sobs a delightful physical representation of his fragility.

Jedah held the boy, embracing him close, whispering soft words of sorrow that seemed comforting, but were designed to bring forth the pain. Each little whispered reminder that the others were dead brought forth fresh tears and a new wave of blissful pain over the Mazoku that held the fragile Mortal.

Jedah closed his eyes against the heat, tucked the child's head under his chin and reveled in the emotions, holding the child close to him, allowing the waves of pain and fear to take him beyond his physical self and filled the very depths of his Astral Self. He felt his awareness fall free, granting him the freedom to span as far as he felt that he could before he plummeted back into the physical shell he affected in a final and dizzying swirl.

When it was over, the child had stilled, the flames banked low, though the ashes were still hot. Jedah opened his eyes slowly, gazing about himself with feline elongated-pupil eyes. Quietly, he set the boy down on his feet near the remnants of his house. He'd be found, no doubt, someone would come and see what had gone amiss. The house hadn't been too far from the road, and it wasn't too inconceivable that someone would miss the family. But that wasn't Jedah's business. He'd gotten what he'd come for, and now it was time for him to leave. He was a busy Mazoku with many things on his schedule.

As he turned to lift himself away, he felt the pulse of another emotion, a burst of fierce pain that ripped through him and brought him gasping to a halt in the air, the pain was almost as good as some of his wilder nights with… Another blast of emotion hit him and he spun to see the child standing in the ashes, flames rippling around him, consuming him in a fiery ball of emotion.

The purity of the pain overwhelmed Jedah, and he felt himself shift into the full appearance of Hellmaster, reaching down to the burning child below him, magic reflexively leaving his fingers. The flames rose higher in response, burning faster, taking the life and claiming it for their own, leaving Jedah in mid-air to be caught in the gloriously twisted rapture of the moment before he vanished into the night, leaving nothing behind but cooling ashes and charred wood.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Amelia had caught up with Lina on the outskirts of town, quietly walked up to the clearing where the redhead was perched on a rock, brooding. She waited a few moments, contemplating how best to get Lina's attention, but when she started to speak, Lina lifted her hand in a silencing motion.

Lina wasn't brooding; she was watching a group of bandits that had collected to the side. She was listening to their plot by means of an amplification spell, nodding to herself as she listened and made her own counter-plans. There was, of course, no way of knowing that these were the notorious Nightstalkers.

After a few more moments of listening, Lina turned to look to Amelia. "They're planning to hit the town. Go back and warn everyone you can while I do what I can out here. Don't let Gourry leave you to come running to my defense." Especially while… well, she didn't say it. She didn't need to. "Stay in the room, don't come out until… until I come back or morning breaks."

Without giving Amelia a chance to reply, Lina took to the air with a ray-wing spell and sped silently towards the bunch of bandits. The princess watched her for a moment, and then she turned and used her own spell to take her silently back towards the hotel, Lina's warning in her head.

It must have looked to the bandits as if Lina had appeared in a ball of smoke. In actuality, she pulled an old trick, floating in and casting a fireball in a ray-wing sphere. When she was where she wanted to be, she let the ray-wing fade, and the smoke was free to roll down around her and reveal her presence.

It worked like a charm, sending bandits scattering every which way, leaving Lina to merrily pick them off one by one. She didn't see the man moving behind her, the one who had been the Second to the Boss. He hadn't been caught out like the others, and he was going to make the tiny redhead pay.

Lina turned and fireballed another bandit, using the magic to force her thoughts into the old patterns of giddy glee that came with thoughts of vast amounts of treasure. It was a distraction, a method to replace the worrisome thoughts of Zelgadis with something older and more familiar.

The group's Second was within reach of her in moments, and two massive hands grabbed the sorceress by her wrists, forcing her arms down and backwards, pinning them behind her, startling her into a pained cry. "Not so tough without your magic, are you, cutie?" He snarled in her ear.

Lina grunted and writhed in his grip, trying to get her face away from his. One thing that she hated about being caught by bandits was that their breath usually stank. This guy was no exception. "Ugh! Let me go!" She tried to stomp on his foot, but her foot was so small it didn't seem to bother him.

He stood up, looming over her to holler to the others who were running. "I've got her! She won't be blasting anyone anytime soon." He lifted his hands, forcing Lina to stand on her toes, as if to illustrate that he truly did have her under his control.

"She may not, but I will," a soft voice said from behind the bandit. There was enough time for the words to register before a blast of powerful magic hit the bandit that was holding Lina, forcing him to release her and spin to see his opponent.

A young man stood there in a white shirt and black pants, looking for all the world like someone's lost little brother… with one rather alarming exception: the ball of magic that he held casually in one hand. He grinned brightly at the bandit and lobbed the ball of magic while moving with unbelievable speed to grab Lina and get them both out of the way of the destruction.

Once the smoke had cleared, Lina twisted, stepped back and looked to the youth that had rescued her. "Jedah!?" Lina stammered, almost unable to believe what was before her. "You survived. I can't believe it. But... how did you manage...?" She could reach out and touch his face if she wanted to, could prove to her that he was real and that she wasn't imagining his perfectly timed arrival to rescue her. But then, he fairly reeked of power, his magic glittering around him as he stood there.

Without answering her, he reached both hands to her, a silent offering for her to touch and see for herself that he was indeed real. His smile was soft, a strange contrast to the power and the unmistakable feeling of Mazoku that swirled around him, but she reached out and took his hands, his skin strangely warm and tingling against hers.

The world around them exploded, a fireball of power washing away from them both in a spherical field of power. It tore through the trees, ripped through the clearing, cleansing the area with blazing magic. It dissipated almost as fast as it had hit, the air smelling as clear and clean as it often did after a rainfall.

"What... was that?" Lina asked, turning to look around them, her hands slipping free from Jedah's grasp. The trees nearly glittered, the ground was unscathed... nothing looked as if a percussive magical force had just ripped through. A bird twittered tentatively nearby, then burst into lively song in the branches above, a bright and cheerful tune that encouraged a few other birds to join in, a delightful countermelody erupting that soon had the woods at least sounding like life belonged there once more.

Jedah only smiled enigmatically, shaking his head at Lina's bewilderment. "Being Hellmaster doesn't mean that all life ends. Only the lives which I intend to end are taken." The bandits were a lost cause, caught somewhere between human and Mazoku, neither one nor the other. "We are, at last, safe here, Lina. That is what counts. Let's go back to the inn and I'll tell you what you want to know."


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

"No." Lina pulled away from Jedah, shaking her head at him. "There's too much unasked, unanswered. I can't just waltz back there with you in tow until I know a few things, Jedah. I just can't do it."

_I should have expected something like this,_ Jedah realized. He should have known that Lina wouldn't just take it in stride, wouldn't let it be and move on. She wanted to know, needed to know. Almost as much as he found that he needed to answer her. "Very well, ask me what you want. If I can give an answer, I will."

Lina narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, and then she frowned and nodded. "You took the Heart from me." She watched his eyes flicker to the side and her frown deepened. "I know that you took it, Jedah… the only way that it could have left my pocket was if you reached in and took it when you pulled me to you in the Tower." She lifted her hand and stopped his words. "No, I don't care how you did it. I want to know why."

He took a breath and looked above her head to the trees behind her, and then he looked back at her crimson gaze, studying the woman reflected in her eyes. "Part of that lies in the past, back in the days when I was what we call a Wildling. I was little better than Zelgadis was, playing to my every whim, drunken in my own power without conscience or compassion." He watched her reaction, her soft snort at his words, but all he did was nod.

"Mazoku have compassion, Lina. It may not be similar to what you consider it, but it is compassion." He'd had this discussion with Amelia, and he wasn't sure what good it had done with her, but he could see the light in Lina's eyes as she contemplated it. "Not all of us are evil… just the ones who lack the proper heart."

"Heart…" Lina echoed, tilting her head. "But you had one… why did you need Zelgadis' as well?" She shook her head as she spoke. "He'd given it up, possibly even freely, but all I could feel from it was pain. It hurt to feel it, hurt to touch it. It tried to attack me when I tried to cast…" She remembered Amelia's reaction and she looked back up to Jedah. "How did you escape the trap?"

His lips quirked into a dry little smile and he lifted his hand to his own chest, placing his open palm against his shirt. "I didn't escape it, Lina. But give me the chance to get to that part." When she nodded, he continued. "My father came to me one day, with tales of my brothers and their affliction by the fragments of Shabranigdo." To his relief, Lina didn't ask, and he continued.

"When he'd admitted his failure as both Human and Mazoku, he commanded that I take his heart." He considered her reaction for a moment before he opened his mouth and said it. "So I reached into his chest and tore it free from his body while it still beat." His fingers clutched slightly at his chest, a protective move, for the more recent memory was still fresh in his mind.

Lina, to her credit, only blinked. She'd known that the way of a Mazoku was strange to her, possibly even amoral to her frame of reference, but that just seemed so beyond the scope that she couldn't decide how to react. "That killed him, I'd imagine." She felt so detached speaking of his father in this fashion.

Jedah nodded. "Yes, it killed him on the spot. But his heart… dissolved into a strange glitter of light and wound its way up my arm. It burned into me like a candle's flame, a brilliant path etching its way across the fabric of my making. When it reached my chest, it began to beat, a golden pulse of fire that left me breathless and weak." He remembered the pain, the stabbing breath-stealing pain that came with each pulse of his new heart. It almost brought him to his knees again.

Lina stepped forwards, seeing Jedah turn pale. "You took his heart and somehow made him take it back, didn't you? You knew that the only way to do that was to give into it, to give it to him the way your father gave you his." She caught his arm, looking up into his eyes. "But how did you survive, Jedah?"

"I don't know," Jedah said. "Zelgadis' heart sat close to my own, almost too close, for he nearly got them both. I felt his fingers on my heart and the Worlds almost faded around me. But he pulled only his free, leaving me as weak as a newborn kitten. Something… someone grabbed me and pulled me away. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought…" His voice trailed off, and he looked away suddenly, thoughts of Xellos flashing to his mind.

"Oh, Jedah. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…" Lina said quietly, her hand tightening on Jedah's arm. "You loved him. As strange as it sounds, as strange as it seems to me, you honestly loved him. And I watched you…" Do what she was afraid that she'd have to do to Zelgadis. "We should go back to the inn. Amelia's probably woken the town to prepare against those bandits."

Jedah looked to Lina for a moment, tilting his head, and then he nodded, pushing the thoughts of Xellos away from his mind, putting aside the thought that he'd never hear the Trickster Priest's voice again, that he'd never see precisely that shade of violet in anyone's eyes, that… he cleared his throat. "We ought to let everyone know that there isn't any need to worry anymore. The bandits are gone, the danger from that is past. The only thing left now is Zelgadis."

Lina nodded as she started to walk back towards the town. She wasn't sure why she hadn't told Jedah that Zelgadis was in the care of her friends, wasn't sure why she wanted him to discover that for himself. Then again, the fact that he didn't seem to know helped comfort her a bit. It meant that Jedah wasn't setting her up.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

The walk back through the woods was a quiet one, Lina lost in contemplation of the events that had transpired in the trees. Jedah had eliminated the bandits with a single spell, a single thought of destruction. He was that deadly powerful… and if it was to be believed… Zelgadis was equal to; if not greater… it almost scared her to think of that much power could be contained by the man that she loved.

As they approached the town, Lina saw lanterns and torches lit; the entire town was awake and ready for the bandits that Jedah had so easily… a man had stepped forwards, and Jedah had moved to block his access to Lina, throwing his arm in front of her, stopping her in her tracks. "You have no quarrel with us, good sirs. This is the famed bandit-killer, Lina Inverse, and I am her brother, escorting her. The bandits are no longer a concern."

Lina blinked, the words automatically slipping from her before she realized what he'd said. "Greywords. Lina Inverse Greywords." Then it hit her that Jedah had given her full credit. "Hey, I didn't get them all by myself!" The vast majority… maybe. But that final spell hadn't been her doing.

The townsfolk looked among themselves, questioning the pair that had come out of the woods. After a moment, one of the men stepped forwards. "Aye, I know her. She took a room at my inn. Her companions, too, though I don't recognize the youth."

"I do!" Someone else piped up. "She kicked him clear across the bar earlier! She's his sister, as true as day!" Those words brought a few chuckles from the men, for more than a few had seen that not so glorious entrance that Jedah had made into the bar.

Jedah coughed in mock self-awareness, glancing to Lina. "I see that you made my arrival quite… memorable, sister." He was laughing at her, and Lina knew it. He turned his attention back to the villagers. "Will you let us pass? We are hungry, tired, and in need of hot water." Jedah was neither hungry, nor tired, but he knew that under the adrenaline, Lina was. Eventually it would catch up with her, and he wanted to be back in the room when it did.

Two men went ahead to the woods as they waved Jedah and Lina through, and the two moved through the impromptu barricade, heading for the hotel. "Jedah… let me go first. Amelia doesn't know you're alive… and Gourry's likely to have the Sword of Light ready for anything…" Lina said quietly as they moved through the lobby and up the stairs towards the room. _Not to mention the small issue of Zelgadis…_

She opened the door slowly, calling out clearly for the inhabitants to hear. "I'm back. The bandits are taken care of… the villagers are cleaning up the mess." She stuck her head into the room, looking around to see Naga, Amelia and Sylphiel perched on the side of the bed, hiding Zelgadis from view while Gourry stood close enough to the door that Lina could have sneezed on him if she'd wanted to.

"Lina! You're safe!" Gourry exclaimed, sheathing the sword and grabbing the door, and pulling it open to let Lina in. When he did, the world came to a stop as Jedah's presence was revealed to the three women at the bed.

It was hard to tell who was more stunned. Amelia, when she stood up to see Jedah, or Jedah, when he caught sight of the unconscious Zelgadis on the bed.

Completely oblivious to Amelia for the moment, Jedah moved across to look at Zelgadis. "You didn't tell me about this, Lina."

"I was just a bit distracted, Jedah." Lina snapped back, the adrenaline starting to ebb from her system. "He arrived in the hallway and just fell over. As far as I know, he hasn't been conscious." The events were starting to catch up to her, and she lifted a hand to her forehead.

Sylphiel moved to Lina's side, a healing spell forming in her hands as she did so. "You should sit; Lina… let me help you." The Cleric guided the sorceress to a chair, her magic washing over the redhead and beginning to ease the headache that had crept up on her.

Jedah put a hand on Zelgadis, the touch confirming what he was sensing. "It's amazing that he made it this far before he fell unconscious." He turned to look at Lina. "It will take time, but he'll be all right… he's been through a massive amount of trauma, both physical and mental. There's no telling how long he'll be out like this." He sighed and dropped his hand. "At least this is a quiet town. With the bandits out of the way, the rest should do everyone a world of… good." The last word fell on an awkward silence as his gaze settled on Amelia.

The silence didn't last, for Naga stood up and marched up to Jedah, shoving him in the small of the back. "I don't care how late it is, I don't care how tired you may or may not be." She collared Amelia and began to walk both sister and Mazoku to the door. "You two have some talking to do. We'll take care of Lina and Zelgadis."

Gourry wasn't entirely pleased, but Jedah had proven himself to be more than just another Mazoku, so he didn't offer an objection. Even his viewpoint could change, little by little. He saw how much Jedah meant to Amelia, and that added to everything else he'd seen Jedah do was revising his opinion of the youth. But it didn't keep him from stopping Jedah at the door and looking him hard in the eyes. "Those bandits may be gone, but you take care of her."

Jedah crooked a weary smile at Gourry as Amelia slipped out of Naga's grasp and out the door. "I will, Gourry. You have my word on that." He didn't get the chance to say anything else as Naga pushed him out the door and closed it on his backside, leaving him standing bemusedly in the hallway with one very flustered Amelia. "Well then… how to begin…?"


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Amelia looked at Jedah for a moment before she looked away, turning her gaze to the wall. "I'm glad you're okay..." She had no idea what to say, for no amount of rational thought was making any headway. "We were worried about the trap set on the Heart..."

"The trap?" Jedah echoed before he thought it through. "Oh, that. Yes, well..." His hand lifted to his chest and he wondered how long he'd feel that ghost pain, how long it would be before he could look at that scar on his chest in a mirror without wanting to double over.

He started to walk, to move away from the room that held friends and headed down the hall, towards the stairs. Amelia followed after him, wondering. "It _did_ spring on you, didn't it." It wasn't a question.

He didn't speak until they were outside, looking at the barricade that the men had hastily put up. Slowly but surely they were taking it apart, pulling the carts to the side, moving the bales of hay back onto the wagon which had been co-opted. It was amazing how fast so few men could come up with a barricade of any worth in such a short amount of time. Granted, it wouldn't have been much against a fire, but it was good for mostly everything else. "Come," Jedah said, holding out his hand to Amelia. "Let's talk where we won't be heard."

It took a moment, but Amelia nodded, and moved to place her hand in his. It was symbolic, she realized, her willingness to trust him after everything she'd learned, after everything she'd seen. Her sister had been right, she did love him. "All right, Jedah," she said softly, offering him a faint little smile. When his magic swept around them, she didn't resist, but kept her eyes on his, watching his gaze as they were swept upwards, high above the town to the bell tower where they had said goodbye.

He watched the villagers below for a moment before he turned to look at Amelia. "You are right; the trap did fall on me." His voice spoke of weariness that didn't show in his eyes or his appearance. "It ensnared me in ways that I can't begin to fathom. But at the same time, it freed Zelgadis, made it possible to for him to be saved. I… lived, if you can call my continued existence living."

Jedah turned from her, lifted his hand against his chest again, fingertips not quite touching the fabric of his shirt. "I'll carry the shadows just as he will for quite some time. It will remain to be seen as to what will ultimately come of the actions taken in the past few days." He couldn't count the gain, not yet. He was still counting the cost, the losses that had stacked so alarmingly high against him… he still wasn't sure how he'd survived it. Perhaps he was simply borrowing time.

Amelia watched him, watched how his hand hovered over his chest. She remembered what she'd felt, what she knew. "You told me that you were dangerous. You stood here and told me that I wasn't safe with you. That trap… the way you stood then, the way you stand now. The words that you say… you act as if you are trying to protect yourself." She said it as she realized it, as she put the puzzle together and came up with the picture that he was unwilling to acknowledge. He was trying to protect his own heart.

_That doesn't matter…_

_I don't care about that…_

Amelia's own words echoed in her head as she stepped forwards and put her hands on his uplifted one, her small hands together on his, pressing his to his heart. "What happened to you, Jedah?" Her head tilted up, eyes lifted, her gaze searching his for clues or even answers.

A wind blew past them ruffling her hair and setting his to dance for a moment before he stepped backwards and took her hands in his. "Amelia, you are kind to worry. But you are a Princess of Saillune and I am Hellmaster." He found the words strangely bitter, dry and twisted on his lips and wondered how long it would be before a lesser would come to challenge him for his place. "I told you that we can never be…"

Right then, Amelia did what was likely the most forward thing she'd ever done in her life, kissing Xellos notwithstanding. She stepped forwards into Jedah, moving her hands, reaching up to his shirt and grasping the white fabric as she yanked down to rip lacings and hooks free to open his shirt and see what it was that he was trying to protect.

It was a clear pattern where the damage had been done during his fight with Zelgadis, a testament to the events of which he had not yet spoken. There, on his chest, over his breastbone was a jagged and rough-edged area of a forming scar, an echo of an angry wound that had left him nearly incapacitated.

He stood in shock, his shirt torn open, left sleeve hanging down his arm. She'd done the unthinkable again, pushed through one more wall and exposed his secrets. He couldn't understand how she could do it, she, a mortal Princess of the White City. And yet, she was standing there, reaching out to him, her fingers just barely touching the scar that was forming over the place where Zelgadis had thrust his hand. "Amelia…"

"You risked everything you had, everything that you were for Zelgadis and Lina. You took the chance at losing it all just so that they'd have the chance." Amelia shook her head, resting her hand fully over the angry red scar. "You may be a Mazoku. You may even be Hellmaster, but you aren't evil." She stepped forwards, rising on tiptoe to place her lips gently on his, and he found himself crumpling into her, closing his arms around her, even as he knew that he shouldn't.

He'd broken enough rules to know how dangerously close he was to breaking another. And yet, Jedah found he didn't care. There were some things worth bending the rules for. After all, that was what had brought him into the world, wasn't it?


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Lina wasn't sure what they could do. Zelgadis was, for all that she could tell, lost to a sleep so deep that nothing could rouse him. Granted, she hadn't tried too hard… there was no sense in waking a Mazoku she didn't need to.

Sylphiel had fallen into a light doze in the chair next to Lina, and at Lina's insistence, Gourry had taken the Cleric off to sleep in their room, but not before leaving Golunova with the redhead and sternly telling Naga to keep Lina from trying any heroics.

Naga had promised to do her best, but she knew that once Lina's mind was made up, not a whole lot could possibly change it. So she opted to sit in the chair that Sylphiel had vacated. "Well, he's back, at least."

Lina was seated next to the bed, bent over with her arms flat on the bed; her eyes level with Zelgadis' chest so that she could watch its rise and fall. It proved, at least, that he was breathing. "Physically, but for how long? Naga, I don't like this. If I could just see who he was… just for a moment… just look at his eyes and see who was looking back…"

Naga rested her hand on Lina's shoulder and sighed softly. "You should rest too. If we can trust Jedah, and I think we can, Zelgadis isn't likely to wake tonight." She looked across to his closed eyes and sighed softly. It wasn't fair, but what could she possibly do?

"Yeah… maybe I ought to," Lina replied quietly, offering Naga a slight smile. "I'll just close my eyes for a few minutes…" She closed her eyes, settling her head slightly into her folded arms, concentrating her thoughts. Naga didn't have the magic sense her sister did…

Naga nodded, pleased with herself for talking Lina into some rest. "Good. I'll keep watch and make sure everything stays calm." She kicked back in the chair, crossing her ankles and relaxing into the watch.

Lina's spell took nearly no time at all, for she'd been planning for just such an attempt as soon as it was remotely feasible. She felt herself swept up in the rush and swell of the power, carried off into the Astral Plane, and found herself standing once more in Rezo's Tower.

She had no way of knowing that Ambervale had been completely destroyed, no clues that the Tower now existed only in the memory of the man that she loved. All she knew was that these walls would forever make her shiver. Too much had happened within the confines of this place; too many memories clung to her like cobwebs.

And yet… she realized that the vast majority of the ghosts of this place had nothing to do with her. She was feeling the shadows of events that had happened to Zelgadis, the memories of things that had been his life. She forced her thoughts to clear and looked around. "Hello?"

Her voice echoed in the ruins, and she frowned slightly as she moved towards the doorway that led to the winding staircase that she recalled all too clearly. "Zelgadis?" She called, trying to decide which way she should look. Was he above? Or below? How could she possibly tell? Did it matter how she got there? She was Astral, after all… she should be able to use sheer force of will to find him.

The room shifted, her surroundings melting from the crumbling staircase to the cave where she'd been before, back when they had been tied together by Rezo's spell. Here, she knew, Zelgadis had unsuccessfully tried to kill himself, had tried to use normal blades to cut the stone skin he had been cursed with.

She frowned, shaking her head. He wasn't here, why had she come here when she'd thought of him? She concentrated again, feeling the current of the Astral Plane reach for her, catch her up and send her spinning off into a darkness that seemed to touch her very soul.

Lina could see nothing, hear nothing. She called out into the darkness, but nothing answered, not even an echo of her own voice. "Hello?" She tried to make sense of the darkness, tried to see something, anything, but there was nothing to see, nothing to try to make out in the endless depths. She took a hesitant step forwards, but something stopped her, a strange feeling as if someone was watching her.

She spun, eyes narrowed, looking for the other, seeing only the darkness that surrounded her. Where was he? She knew Zelgadis was somewhere; it was simply a matter of finding him in this darkness. "Zelgadis, where are you? It's time to come home."

Something fell heavy on her shoulder, and she turned in expectation of seeing Zelgadis, but the words faded on her lips as she looked back at light blue eyes glittering in reflection of the magic that had brought Jedah to her. She offered a weak smile, as if to say that it had to be tried, and he shook his head.

"Lina, this isn't like the spell that tied the two of you together. You're Astral, yes, but you're seeking him within your own perceptions and your own memories. You can't find Zelgadis that way." Jedah said gently, his hand still on her shoulder. "Go back and wait for him to wake on his own. We can't do anything until he wakes, so why waste the effort?"

Lina sighed and looked to Jedah for a moment before she closed her eyes. "Fine, I'll go back. I just…" She opened her eyes in time to see him fading from her sight, and she willed herself out of the Astral, back to herself and the waiting game.

She opened her eyes, blinking at the sudden light, lifting her head from her arms and looking around the room for a moment. Naga was asleep, kicked back in the chair, snoring softly without a care in the world. Some watch she was keeping. Lina snorted softly to herself, her lips twisted in wry bemusement.

And then it struck Lina in the space of two heartbeats.

She was being watched.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

They'd stood atop the bell tower for a long time, at first caught in the moment of his crumpling into her kiss, and then even longer as he held her close to him. Jedah could barely comprehend it, the fact that she was right there in his arms. It made him dizzy to think about it, and he settled for simply holding her and feeling the warmth of her breath, smelling her hair, hearing her heart.

After a few moments, he'd had to step back from her, had to look to her and make sure she was still there, still real. It was as strange as a dream, but she was there in his arms, smiling at him. "Amelia…"

She reached up and placed her finger on his lips. "Shh. Don't talk, don't think. Just stay here and be with me, Jedah." She wanted to tell him that he didn't have to worry about her, that she had no intention of going anywhere, but she could see how torn he was. She didn't want to hurt him, didn't want to become a problem for him. Yes, he was Hellmaster. Yes, he was Mazoku, the opposite of what she should be entertaining. She didn't care about that.

"I shouldn't…" Jedah said, pulling away and turning to look back over the town. "I wish I could, Amelia. I wish that things were different and I was just Zelgadis' little brother, that happy-go-lucky brat with his own brand of luck to keep him out of trouble. But I'm not. It's just an illusion." He reached up, finding lacings and trying to close his shirt.

Amelia watched Jedah as he fumbled with the torn fastenings, listening to the words that he spoke quietly. "You've fallen in love with an illusion, Amelia. That youth doesn't exist and can't exist." He knew she was watching, and he knew that he couldn't look at her. Any resolve he'd managed to find would dissolve. "My shadow is darker than you can dream, my hands are responsible for things you couldn't imagine, let alone comprehend."

"Try me, Jedah." Her voice was steel, and he turned out of reflex, fumbling with a broken hook that wasn't going to close shy of magic. She stood there, looking at him with a steady gaze. "Because I've seen a lot of things that I didn't dream were possible, and I don't see an illusion. I see a young man with the power of a Mazoku and the heart of a good man. I see an eternal struggle personified and tired of fighting it."

Her words brought Jedah to a halt, and his shoulders fell. "I told you that you'd be the best ruler Saillune ever had." He half turned, looking out over the town once more. "We should probably get you back to the hotel. It wouldn't be good to keep you out all night. Gourry's itching for a reason to take my head off."

"I'm not the cute and fluffy air-headed fifteen-year-old kid who joined up with Lina and Gourry and needs protecting anymore, Jedah. I am twenty years old… and I'm capable of protecting myself." Amelia folded her arms and looked at Jedah. "I've made deals with devils, slept with the enemy, and learned on my own that life isn't fair." The last three words were spoken clearly and deliberately.

Jedah turned to look at her, surprised by the fire that glittered in her eyes. He hadn't expected that she'd throw it all out in the open and call him on it. "Amelia, I never thought of you as a kid. I care about you. I care about you a good deal more than I ought to… and that's the problem."

Amelia shook her head as she turned to walk to the balustrade and look out over the trees where the bandits had been earlier. "I don't understand why it's a problem. I just don't, Jedah." She sighed softly, lifting her gaze to the stars that were starting to glitter overhead.

Jedah sighed as well, looking at her as if he wanted to move with her, wanted to join her at the railing and stand there at her side. "Our natures oppose, Amelia. We can wish and desire all we choose. But the cold, bare, truth is that if my power slipped, I would be the death of you." He shook his head, his eyes turning a brilliantly hard light blue. "And I can't risk that. I've already lost two that I cared about; I can't lose three."

Amelia looked over to him, but almost immediately looked away, unable to look directly into those brilliant light blue eyes. "Xellos managed well enough."

Jedah watched Amelia for a moment, and he held up his hand to stay her off. "I know about you and Xellos." He watched the color drain from her face and continued to speak. "I know precisely what happened in your rooms, exactly what he did in your bed." By the end of his comment, she was scarlet, though he couldn't tell if it was fury or humiliation. Against his better judgment, he moved across to her and reached out to tilt her face up to his.

"I also know that he didn't touch you, Amelia. No matter what you think happened, the most contact that came between the two of you was his hand on your cheek." Jedah tactfully didn't mention that Amelia's reaction to Xellos was so strong that only the lightest touch to her cheek was needed. "He may have wanted to, but it would have been self destructive, and if there was ever anything Xellos was, it was self-preserving."

Except that now, he was gone, and Amelia hesitated to point that out, turning to look at Jedah quietly as she reminded him. "Lina said that you destroyed him because he stood against you."

"He'll be back; my Mother will recreate him." Jedah wondered how he'd approach a mirror-duplicate of the violet-haired Trickster. "However, he won't be the same. Oh, he'll have the violet hair and eyes, the same voice and power. But the spirit that made him who he was… that will be different." He shook his head and pushed the thoughts aside as a ripple washed over him. "Lina's gone Astral after Zelgadis."

Before Amelia could say anything, Jedah had vanished. With a sigh, she cast a raywing and headed back for the hotel.


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Gourry was standing in the door of the room, glaring at Lina. By his expression, he knew precisely what Lina had been doing, and he wasn't remotely pleased. "You couldn't wait for him to wake up on his own, could you? So you waited just long enough for everyone to leave and for her to fall asleep, and off you went, trying to find him."

Lina cringed under the hard glare, the terse words, but she fired her own glare back, not caring that her voice was loud enough to wake Naga. "Of _course_ I went off to find him, he's my husband! I need to know if he's going to open his eyes and be the man I married, or if he's going to be some half-mad Mazoku drunk on his own power and likely to try to destroy the world!"

Naga awoke with a start, her eyes snapping open as Lina stood and stalked across the room to pour herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. "Oh hell, I fell asleep… I'm sorry." She rubbed her face and stood as she looked around the room.

"It's not your fault, Naga. We're all tired." Gourry grumbled, walking over to Lina, glowering at her for another moment before he sighed. "Lina, I know. But what if he'd had another trap set for you? With Naga asleep, there wasn't anyone to help you."

Lina swallowed some water and looked at Gourry firmly. "None of you could have helped that other time. I only survived it because Xellos came after me. Nothing you could have done would have helped."

"Regardless, Lina!" Gourry retorted. "You have to stop taking things on yourself like that. This is bigger than any of us, and even I understand that!" He ignored the hand that suddenly fell on his shoulder, glaring at Lina like an older brother who had been scared half out of his wits by his inability to stop her.

"It's all right, Gourry; I was there to send her back." The soft voice belonged to Jedah, and his words were so calm that they had the same impact as if he'd shouted them at the top of his lungs. "I'm not saying that she was right to do it, but it's been done. She's back, safe and sound and that's the important thing."

Amelia walked in, obviously expecting the worst, and upon finding that nothing had blown up and no-one was injured, she let out a sigh of relief as she turned back to the door. "That's it. I can't deal with this any more tonight. I'm tired, and I'm going to my room to sleep."

Naga frowned at her sister. "Hey, Amelia? If you don't mind, I'll come with you?" It sounded like Amelia needed the company. "I'm no use in here… may as well get some sleep…" Or talk. Whichever her sister seemed to be inclined towards, that's what Naga would do. Amelia didn't answer, but just turned away and left the room, with her sister trailing after.

Lina thought it was a rather obvious excuse for them to escape the room, but what could she do about it? She was more than a bit cornered by Gourry and Jedah, which suddenly struck her as amusing, and she started to chuckle softly. "Well, I never thought I'd see the two of you agreeing…"

Gourry blinked, glanced across to Jedah, and the two of them stared at each other for a few moments before Jedah shrugged. "It doesn't matter how we regard each other, Lina. What matters is that we both agree that you shouldn't have been Astral."

"Yeah," Gourry added, agreeing with Jedah yet again. "And you know you shouldn't have been Astral. At the very least it was reckless… at the worst…" His blue eyes darkened slightly as he gave the redhead a serious look. "Just don't do that again, Lina." Before Lina or Jedah could say anything, the swordsman turned to the Mazoku. "I'm tired. You keep an eye on her."

"Uh, yeah," Jedah managed, trying not to look overly surprised. He'd missed the change of heart in the swordsman before, so he was caught out by the sudden trust. "You should… go rest. I'll make sure Lina doesn't do anything stupid."

Gourry nodded, pointing across to Golunova sitting in the chair where Lina had left it. "Keep that with you, Lina. I won't bother telling you to rest." He turned and moved out into the hallway, closing the door behind himself.

"Oh, Jedah… what do I do?" Lina sighed, hanging her head. "I don't know who he is… I have no idea who he will be when he opens his eyes." She looked at the glass of water in her hand, watched Jedah's fingers rise to take the glass out of her hand, lifted her gaze to his, and watched his eyes as he spoke.

"Lina, I can't answer that. I don't know who he will be either." He quirked a little smile at her. "I'm not the me I started as. You aren't the you that was yesterday, or even this morning. We all grow, we all change. We do things that shape us and mold us differently from how we expected."

Lina turned away sharply, the echo of Jedah destroying Xellos in her head. "You're right… even you have done things that I couldn't have imagined you'd do." She let her gaze settle on the silent and still form of Zelgadis. "We aren't who we were… but who will we become?"

Jedah's eyebrow quirked slightly at her comment, and then his faint smile turned wry at her query. "Isn't that part of the adventure, Lina? Part of why we do what we do? At the end of the road, what will there be?"

Lina looked back at Jedah for a moment. "At the end of the road… isn't that a song or something?" She turned to walk over and pick up Golunova, looking at it in her hands. "Jedah… I need to ask you something." Her voice was quiet, her tone serious, but she didn't stop, didn't wait for him to reply. If she did, she knew she wouldn't be able to ask it.

"How did you find the strength to kill the one you loved?"


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Amelia had no plans to sleep, and told her sister so the moment the door to the room that had been set aside for them was closed.

Naga just looked at her for a moment, and reached out to pull Amelia to her, enfolding her sister in a hug that seemed badly needed. She knew that Amelia was upset, knew that the younger girl had fallen in love with Jedah, and knew the probability of that becoming anything more than yet another unrequited love from afar.

Amelia fought off her emotions for all of two heartbeats before she broke into tears, sobbing. She clung to her sister for a few minutes and then allowed herself to be led to a bed and sat on the edge, sniffling while Naga gathered some tissues.

"Amelia, I don't know what happened, but if you want to talk about it… I know that I'm not the best older sister in the world, but I'm here for you," Naga said softly, sitting next to Amelia and offering the tissues.

Amelia's only answer was to sniffle and take the tissues. She didn't know why she was crying, except that she was tired and everything was crashing down on her head and it was just too much for her. All she wanted was for things to be the way they had been right after the ball. After a few moments, she managed to find her voice. "It's just too much."

Naga reached up and put her arm around Amelia, hugging her sister to her. "It is, Amelia. It really is too much. And you know what? We're all in it together so it doesn't become too much for any one of us." She knew that Amelia was trying to keep a brave face for everyone, trying to be the perky cheerful little princess so people wouldn't worry.

"But they're so unhappy… it's in Lina's eyes, how much she's hurting. I want to help her and I can't!" Amelia hiccupped into the tissue and looked to her sister with watery blue eyes. "I can't do anything to help anyone."

Naga wanted to laugh, though softly. "Oh, Amelia…" She sat forward, hugging her sister to her, patting her back lightly. "Sometimes you can't do things for others. Sometimes you just have to be there for them to come to you when they need your help." _Like what I'm doing now,_ she thought to herself, casting her own version of a sleep spell on Amelia.

Amelia sniffled, sitting back and looking at her sister. She could tell that Naga was casting a sleep spell on her, but she also knew that it was the only way she'd rest. She was entirely too wound up for sleep on her own. As it washed through her, she managed to glower. "I'll… get you back… for that…"

"I hope you will, Amelia," Naga replied softly as she settled Amelia on the bed and looked to her sister. "Just as soon as we all get some rest." They'd all been running on adrenaline and emotion… herself included. She'd leave it all in Jedah's capable hands for the night and see what could be done with Lina in the morning. But for now, Naga had every intention of getting sleep herself.

Out in the hallway, the blonde swordsman paused outside the door to the room that Amelia had claimed as hers. He could hear crying, and he closed his eyes, shoulders falling. He counted himself incredibly lucky to have Sylphiel, and it saddened him that Lina and Amelia couldn't be happy. Gourry knew life wasn't fair, but there were just some things that he thought could have gone better.

It made his heart ache to listen to the sobs, and he forced his feet to continue, to take him to his room where his wife lay sleeping, safe and certain in who she was. He didn't know if he'd manage to get any sleep, but he'd try.

His room was quiet and dark when he slipped in. He could hear Sylphiel's breathing, and knew that she wasn't asleep. He heard her shift in the bed, the mattress creaking as she moved, and then she spoke softly. "Is someone with Lina? She shouldn't be alone…"

"Jedah's in there now," Gourry replied, as he moved across the room, sat on the edge of the bed and tugged off his boots. "He seems to know how to handle her, and I dare say that he's better equipped to withstand her temper and moods." He unbuckled his shoulder-guards and let them slide to the floor.

"He's not evil," Sylphiel said as she sat up and felt around the bedside table for the glass of water she'd put there earlier. Her fingers bumped it and she picked it up to take a sip from it as she heard Gourry unbuckle his belt. "I'm not sure that he's good, but I know that he's not randomly evil. There's a strange duality about him that just doesn't match any Mazoku I've ever sensed before."

"Yeah," Gourry grunted as he pulled off his pants and set them on the chair next to the bed. "I don't understand him at all. He doesn't act like a Mazoku, certainly doesn't act like Hellmaster Phibrizo did… but I think we can safely say that Phibrizo was insane."

Sylphiel put the glass back down carefully. "Phibrizo was beyond insane, Gourry dear. I think he'd lost himself to his powers a long time ago. Jedah seems to be older and wiser about things, though perhaps not happily so." She settled back into her pillow as Gourry dropped his shirt on the floor and shifted to curl up to her.

"Well, either way, I trust Jedah. He's done some things that prove his value, even if he is Hellmaster," Gourry said thoughtfully. "He protected Lina from Zelgadis and from Xellos…" His voice trailed off as he hugged Sylphiel close to him. There were some things that escaped his understanding, but the way that Jedah had hovered over Xellos, the pain in his eyes when he'd returned with Lina… the shadow that hung over him now…

Gourry fell asleep before he could finish his thought.


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter 33

It felt as if a bolt of lightning had entered Jedah's chest through the livid scar under the fragile cloth that protected it. His breath stuck in his throat, and he let his Mazoku nature take over for his all-too-Human reaction. The power pulsed through him silently, rippling over his senses, easing the unexpected pain that her question had wrought.

His silence made her turn to look to him with sad crimson eyes. She saw the cold shock of how her question had managed to tear through him and seize his heart with unforgiving hands and tighten like a vise. It stunned her, for she hadn't expected him to react quite so… human. "I… I'm sorry, Jedah. I shouldn't have asked that. I wasn't thinking straight."

When he had gathered his wits enough to breathe, he filled his lungs and let the air out slowly in a sigh that said more than he wanted it to. "I did what had to be done, Lina. Eventually I hope that I'll be able to put it behind me, to let go of the pain that comes with the knowledge that I destroyed him. I can only hope that it doesn't come to that for you."

She set down the swordhilt, moving back to look at Jedah quietly. It was easier to worry about someone else, easier to let her own thoughts and feelings fall to the side. She'd done it before with Amelia, and decided to do it again now. "Zelgadis is out cold… there's no use just staring at him." She motioned to a chair, walking around the tiny table to sit in the other. "How did you and Xellos meet?"

Jedah gave her a funny little look, but nodded after a moment and moved to sit, unaware that his shirt gaped open at the torn hook and allowed Lina a glimpse of the scar. He wasn't looking up to see her expression shift rapidly, and missed the look of horrified pain she gave him before she looked to the table. "It was a few years before the War of the Monster's Fall. I was bored, and when I got bored, I'd sometimes find a town and play havoc with the Cepheid Priests."

"I chose a town in the southern area, down by WolfPack Island. It was close, an easy target. Due to the proximity of my mother's residence, there was always a high turnover of those who entered the Priesthood." Jedah offered Lina's look a nod that was accompanied by a soft chuckle. "I liked to go place bets on who would leave first. Sometimes I helped them leave."

Lina rolled her eyes at his admission, but had to acknowledge that she'd almost expected to hear it. "And I'm guessing that Xellos was one of them." She unclipped her cuff bangles, setting the silver metal on the table and peeling off her gloves as he shook his head.

"Not entirely, no. I was down by the river one afternoon, and I happened to see him sitting in the water. Even as a mortal, he was beautiful, silvered grey hair and ice-blue eyes. He was bathing, and I remember being behind him, reaching up to run my fingers through his hair and only being able to brush the back of his neck. For some reason, I was afraid of breaking him." Jedah's gaze settled into the distance, seeing the silver hair in front of him once more.

Lina tilted her head, watching Jedah as he spoke. The way he looked… she'd seen that look many times before. It was the look of someone recalling a dear memory of a loved one, that far away gaze that brought the past to the present and merged the moments for a brief lifetime. She didn't say anything, however, just put her gloves down on the table and allowed him to keep talking.

"It took time for him to trust me, he wasn't the trusting type. He'd been let down by life, forced into the duty of Cephied by an overbearing father. He was an artist, a dreamer, a youth who could have been so much more than a middling Priest not suited for much more than the occasional blessing of the food." Jedah chuckled, pulling his gaze from the past and looking to Lina. "Before I knew it, I was falling in love and I didn't even know if he was remotely interested in that."

"I think it was the happiest accident of my life that he was," Jedah said as he sat back in the chair. "I never hid the fact that I was a Mazoku from him, it didn't seem to be a concern. He seemed more at ease with me than with any of his contemporaries, and the thought of him growing old and leaving me was almost more than I could accept. So I offered him the Pact, and he took it with both hands."

"So what happened?" Lina asked softly, aware that Xellos hadn't notably been with Jedah when they'd first met, and that there hadn't seemed to be any interaction between them until much later. "What drove the two of you apart?" Her crimson eyes searched Jedah's light blue ones, seeing the echoes of memory dancing within them.

"We were together for so very long… I suppose we just naturally grew apart." Jedah said wryly. "It happens, sometimes, you change; move on a bit and turn to find out that the other went a slightly different direction. I never stopped loving him… we just weren't a pair anymore." He shrugged slightly, lifting the corner of his mouth in a half-smile reminiscent of Zelgadis. "Others came and went for both of us, and that's the way it was."

"I'm sorry he's gone, Jedah," Lina said quietly, looking away from Jedah's gaze. "I can tell that you cared for him deeply, no matter how the two of you stood. It must be very hard to accept that he's gone." She studied her hands, looked at her white-tipped fingernails, wondering if her hands would eventually be the end of the one she'd chosen.

"It will take time, just like most everything else takes." Jedah replied softly, looking at her hands for a moment before he sighed and cleared his throat. "Lina, I'll do everything that I can to keep you from having to make the choice that I had to." _Even if I end up being the one to carry the weight of your hatred._ Jedah knew that if it came to it, he could do the same to Zelgadis as he did to Xellos. Lina would hate him for it, but he'd sworn to protect her.


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

The night had moved on quietly, Lina and Jedah talking softly over a great range of subjects until during a lull in the conversation, Jedah turned to see Lina had fallen asleep with her head on her arms. While part of him didn't want to leave her there to wake with a stiff neck, another part of him didn't want to move her. In the end, he used his magic to settle her onto the other bed next to Zelgadis'.

It was still a few hours before dawn, and Jedah sat back at the table, thinking back over the course of the discussion with Lina. He reached up to his chest, laying hesitant fingers on the scar and wondered. Why had it left a scar? He should have been immune to it, being that he shared bloodlines with Zelgadis. Was there something else at play that he wasn't aware of?

Lina rolled over in her sleep, mumbling softly as she did so. Jedah's gaze flickered over to her, and he smiled faintly at her careless sleep. She was strong; she'd survive this, no matter what happened. He'd see to her safety and let the rest fall to her companions and friends.

He kicked back, putting his feet up on the table, wondering what would ultimately come of himself. He was Hellmaster, subservient to Lord Shabranigdo, but he'd acted contrary to his nature. He was a destroyer, a Mazoku Lord. And yet, somehow, he'd become Lina's guardian protector. In the interest of her safety, he'd destroyed Xellos, betraying his own desires.

How long would it be before he burned for it? When would he feel that same rain of destruction that he had wrought against the General-Priest of Beastmaster? Would he welcome it? Fight it? Could he even begin to guess? Jedah didn't understand half of his own actions, though he felt that he'd made them all with resolve and conviction. After another few long moments of agonizing, he decided that as long as he believed in what he did, he'd manage. When he turned against his own convictions, then it would be time to worry.

A hand fell on his shoulder, startling him out of his reverie, and he dropped his feet off of the table as he turned to see a heartachingly familiar figure. His mother had finally gotten around to restoring her subordinate, and had likely sent him to report to Jedah.

The simulacrum of Xellos fell to one knee in salute, offering nothing in the form of a greeting, no commentary on how Jedah was sitting, or any observations on those sleeping within the room. Jedah found it more than a bit surreal, but he nodded to the Mazoku. "I take it that you've been sent to report to me. Very well, report." He wasn't in the mood to beat around the proverbial bush.

"I have been instructed to offer my services to you for as long as you deem necessary. Beastmaster Juuou finds that she has no current need of me, and has assigned me to you." Gone was the sarcastic edge to the voice, though the tone was similar in nature. It felt as if Jedah was speaking with a twin that he'd never before encountered, and left him decidedly offput. Then again, that may have been the fact that his mother had assigned the new 'version' to him.

"My mother is almost as capricious as the Lord of Nightmares," Jedah replied, smirking at the thought of being 'babysat' by the new Xellos. "I have no need of you right now, but if I think up a need, I will call you. For now, go terrorize some town."

"If that is Hellmaster's will, then it shall be done." There was no emotion in that voice that was so familiar, so very haunting an echo of the voice that he knew would never speak again. "I will await your command." Violet eyes lifted, catlike pupils shifting to focus on Jedah, and then the figure vanished from sight.

Jedah sighed, tilting his head up to rest it on the chair and stare at the ceiling. It might be easier to lack the heart with which he'd been burdened, but he knew that he'd choose it over none at all. It just hurt in a fashion that was beyond his understanding, beyond his using.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, though he wasn't certain to whom his apology should have been addressed. Was it something he was offering himself, in a pathetic effort to make himself feel better for his actions? Or was he offering it to the memory of Xellos that was the only thing that he had remaining?

Lina rolled over in the bed, mumbling something to herself, and Jedah lifted his head, looking to her. Part of him had some admiration for Zelgadis' willingness to put up with her. She was as active in sleep as she was when awake. Jedah didn't need to sleep, of course, but he could well imagine attempting to do such while someone next to him tossed, turned, and mumbled.

The flicker of magic caught his attention, and he saw the pendant had slipped out of Lina's hand as she rolled, falling against her chest. It glittered softly, as if trying to make itself felt in the room, a faint aquamarine shimmer in the darkness.

Curious, Jedah rose and walked quietly over, touching a finger to the gemstone and reaching his magic out to that which was embedded within the pendant. The radiance grew, the power starting to rise within the pendant, and he could feel something within the magic trying to slip free, trying to escape.

"Lina!," Jedah moved his hand to her shoulder, shaking her lightly. "Lina, wake up! The pendant… let me hold your pendant." He had a theory, an idea that was more than simply just conjecture. But to test it, he needed to hold the stone in his hands.

Lina opened her eyes, and sleepily unhooked the necklace, waking up fully when it burst into fiery life in the palm of Jedah's hand. "What? Jedah…?" She reached up and pushed hair out of her eyes as Jedah turned and placed the glowing pendant on Zelgadis' chest, above his heart.

Immediately, the glow became brilliantly painful to watch, and Lina and Jedah were both forced to look away as the light flared and then vanished as if it had never been, accompanied by a softly voiced groan.


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Before Lina could so much as register the thought that Zelgadis had groaned, Jedah had moved to block her from moving off of the bed. "Stay put," he whispered, waiting to hear if Zelgadis would move, or say anything else. He could see in the half-light, watched Zelgadis' hand lift from the side of the bed and reach up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.

"Mmmmm…" It wasn't the most eloquent of comments that he could have made, but it summed up how Zelgadis felt. His head ached with an emptiness that throbbed in his awareness, and his mouth as if he'd been sucking on a dirty sock. Was this a hangover? He didn't recall getting drunk… in fact… he didn't recall much of… oh.

On the other hand, maybe he did.

And he didn't want to.

Zelgadis moved his hand, resting the back of his hand on his forehead, opening his eyes to look up at the darkened ceiling. It wasn't the ceiling that he'd had in the hotel room that he'd rented… where was he? He turned his head, looking across to the side, and spotted Jedah standing there, looking at him from beside the other bed. Licking his lips, he sat up and was distracted by the pendant sliding off of his chest.

Pendant?

Lina.

Oh, sweet Cepheid. _Lina_.

Zelgadis sat up completely, scooping up the pendant and looking at it. Where was she? What had he done to her? He remembered taunting her, remembered the twisted parody of self wanting her, but not for the reasons that he should have. He remembered Xellos grabbing her, remembered the flash of emotion that hit him… no. That had been Jedah hitting him. It had been Jedah appearing out of the darkness, firing off a bolt of power that caught him unprepared.

He remembered thinking Jedah had wanted Lina for himself, remembered the words crossed, the tendrils of magic.

Remembered reaching into Jedah and tearing out his heart.

Much to Jedah's absolute astonishment, Zelgadis sat up, and looked at the pendant for a moment before he turned aquamarine eyes across the room. Uncertain, Jedah had reached for his power, preparing to defend both himself and Lina, and was holding the magic at ready when Zelgadis turned away from Jedah and… retched.

Jedah suddenly recalled the last time Zelgadis had done that. He remembered standing outside of Ambervale, watching Zelgadis on the ground, feeling sorry for the man who didn't have the stomach to contain his reaction to the atrocities that he'd orchestrated. He felt it again now, though with relief, for that told him that Zelgadis was once more the man that Lina had married, the man who preferred to shun needless violence. Unneeded, his magic fell quietly away, and he turned to look behind him.

Zelgadis' stomach heaved again and again, but nothing came from it, it had been that long since he'd eaten or drunk. He'd lived as a Mazoku, not needing food or drink to sustain himself. Bitter tears wrenched themselves from him, and he found himself hoping that Jedah would just go and leave him there to come to terms with himself.

But it wasn't to be.

Jedah offered a faint smile and nod to Lina, and barely had time to get out of her way as she launched herself off of the bed and reached out an excited but hesitant hand towards her husband. Before she could touch him, however, Zelgadis shuddered, and Lina looked back at Jedah in alarm. "Go on, it's him," he offered, waiting to see if she'd close that hesitant gap.

"Zel…?" Lina whispered, turning back and placing her hand on the man's shoulder. "Zelgadis…?" She felt him move, felt him turn his head to look at her, lifted her own eyes to see his watered aquamarine gaze, and the only thing she could do was smile. "Hi."

Her whispered greeting was so soft, so sad, it almost broke Jedah's heart. He had to step back, had to fade into the shadows and let them have their reunion without him. He'd know if something went wrong, he'd sense it if any magic shifted and built. He didn't need to stay in the room.

He closed his eyes, drawing himself out of the room, pulling away from the memories and the emotions that threatened to choke him, threatened to drag the world down around him. He cast himself wildly out, not caring where he went, but knowing he couldn't go far, cursing himself for his own foolish folly in the great scheme of things. Fool he was. Damn his heart.

Zelgadis hadn't been able to answer Lina. Instead, he'd looked at her, almost afraid to move towards her. He remembered everything all too clearly, every single thing that he had done, every intention that he had had… and he knew what he had almost done to her. So instead of a reply, he simply gave her a faintly weak smile before he looked away.

"Zel?" She asked softly, resting her hand on his shoulder. She was afraid of the silence, afraid that he'd turn and have that cold glare in his eyes. What would she do if Jedah had been wrong? And he'd up and left… was she in more trouble now that she'd given up the pendant?

"I'm sorry, Lina." It was all that he could say, all that he could bring voice to. It seemed so… empty, so lacking in comparison to everything that had happened. He settled his gaze on the pendant in his hand, and tried to settle his thoughts.

Lina's reply was to lean forwards and bring her arms around Zelgadis, catching him into her embrace and holding him tightly. "I'm sorry too, Zel. I'm sorry that I couldn't protect you, sorry that I let whatever it was in that stupid cave get to me."

She was apologizing to him? He, who had very nearly destroyed her? He pulled back, reaching up to grip her upper arms and hold her gently but firmly. "Lina, don't. You don't owe me any apologies. I nearly killed you!" Cepheid knew that he had tried.

Lina shook her head. "You protected me, Zel. The pendant was what kept me safe." To keep him from saying anything further, Lina leaned forward, pulled his face close, and kissed him soundly on the lips.


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Morning broke, dawn coming and passing without notice from the four sleeping in the hotel. Jedah noticed it, being that he was perched atop the building, having spent the entire time sitting and staring out at the stars and the world. Now, however, he was watching the two who were walking hand-in-hand in the small garden outside.

Lina and Zelgadis had emerged almost an hour ago, and Jedah was relieved to see them holding hands. He'd worried that somehow it would go wrong and would end in tears. Instead, it seemed to be going as well as it could, with both talking quietly between themselves. He wouldn't listen in; he wanted to give them the privacy that they needed. After everything was said and done, he owed them both that much.

Given that, he ought to see if the others were awake… he stretched and phased through the roof of the hotel, fading into the hallway in time to see Amelia burst out of the room where Lina and Zelgadis had been. It took her a few moments to realize that it was Jedah, and then she nearly leapt at him in her anxiety. "Jedah! They're gone! What happened! Is Lina okay? Where is Zelgadis??"

Jedah reached out instinctively, grabbing her shoulders gently, but firmly to keep her from running off. "It's okay, Amelia. Zelgadis woke up and he's just fine. They went outside, to talk. It's the best way things could go." He hoped it would stay that way, hoped that Lina could help Zelgadis heal. He knew that there would come a time that he'd have to face Zelgadis, and while he wasn't looking forward to it, a part of him was glad. It meant that Zelgadis would be himself again.

Amelia's eyes filled with tears, and she started to cry, throwing herself into Jedah, who, for all the world had not expected that sort of reaction from her. Stunned, he brought his arms up and around her in time for Naga to step out of her room and look at him curiously for a moment before moving towards the pair of them.

Sighing, Jedah decided that he just couldn't win, and closed his eyes, lowering his head to Amelia's and settled himself on holding her as she cried. He heard Naga move, felt her brush past them, and he heard her gasp. A moment passed, and then he opened his eyes as a hand was placed on his arm. He followed the line of Naga's hand up to her arm, his gaze meeting her eyes, though he said nothing.

"Are those good tears, or bad?" Naga asked softly, having stuck her head in the room and seen that both Lina and Zelgadis were missing. She hoped it was the better, but given everything else that had been happening as of late, she had to ask to be certain. If she'd entered the room and looked out the window, she might have seen them, but she hadn't, so she asked.

"They're outside talking," Jedah replied quietly, holding Amelia and wondering if he ought to be. After a moment of indecision, he gave the princess a little hug and gently pulled back to look to her. "Come on, Amelia. Pull yourself together now… Zelgadis isn't the type to like a fuss." Part of him wondered at how kind his voice was. He did love her, curse his heart, but there was no way that he could.

As Amelia stepped back and wiped her tears, Gourry and Sylphiel walked up from the room down the hallway. One look at Amelia was all Gourry needed to glare hotly at Jedah, instantly assuming the absolute worst. Old habits died hard, after all. "What did you do?"

Suddenly, it was all too much for Jedah. Emotions burst violently hot, the relief at Zelgadis' return, the pain of losing Xellos, the irritation at being immediately labeled as the cause of Amelia's tears, and it was beyond his ability to contain. To be honest, he didn't even try. Instead, he lifted his head, giving in to the rush of anger and letting it have voice.

"Damn it, Gourry, I am _not_ the bad guy here! I made a promise to Zelgadis years ago that I'd protect Lina, and that's what I did! I even killed my lover to keep her out of danger, and all I get is suspicion and doubt! I give up!" His eyes blazed brilliantly for a moment, and he ran his fingers through his hair to keep himself from reaching out and throttling someone. "I'm done. I've done what I promised to do; I kept Lina safe. Zelgadis is back, and I'm through. I've acted against my nature, against my title, and I've lost nearly everything that I cared about…" His voice trailed off as he realized that his actions had had lost him more than he had counted. He'd lost Zelgadis and Xellos both in varying fashion.

"Jedah…" Amelia said softly, stepping forwards to reach for his arm, but all she got was a pained look before he stepped backwards and vanished. She turned, looking at Gourry for a moment before she turned away and looked to Naga. "He said that Zelgadis and Lina were outside. I don't want to bother them yet, so I'm going to go find breakfast. Care to join me?" Her voice was arch, her clear disapproval of Gourry's interpretation of events ringing loudly in the hallway.

Naga knew better than to argue, and nodded to Amelia, turning to walk with her sister to the stairs so they could leave the hotel and find something to eat, leaving Sylphiel and a very surprised Gourry in the hallway.

"You deserved that," Sylphiel commented mildly, though for her to say it gave Gourry serious pause. His gentle mannered wife wasn't known for sharp observations, but when she made them, it was with pointed clarity. What stunned him further was that she moved past him, calling down to Amelia and Naga to wait for her, she was coming with them, leaving him alone in the hallway.


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Completely oblivious to the consternation they were causing upstairs in the hotel, Lina and Zelgadis were walking through the small garden, voices low. They'd tried to figure out what to say, where to start, and at first it had been stilted and awkward. It took several tries for them both to say more than a few syllables at a time.

A rabbit had done it though, breaking through the grass to hop frantically for a better hiding place, scaring Lina into Zelgadis' arms. They'd both been so jumpy that they'd clung to each other for a moment before breaking into softly embarrassed laughter. Now, almost two hours later, they were walking and talking almost as if the past month and a half hadn't happened at all.

"You know, for a long time there I wasn't sure I was going to get you back," Lina admitted, quirking a fragile little smile as she looked at his fingers laced in hers.

He walked along beside her for a few beats before he glanced at their hands and then looked away. "I wasn't sure you'd want me back. After everything I did…" His voice trailed off as she came to a stop and forced him to turn to her.

She stood there looking at him, her crimson eyes brilliant. A breeze picked at her hair, tugged at her sleeves, giving her the illusion of motion while she was standing still. "Stop it, Zelgadis. That wasn't you. You aren't a monster driven by hate. That's not what Mazoku are. If I've learned anything in this, it's that there's good and bad in everything."

He looked at her, floored, unable to comprehend what she was telling him. Mazoku weren't monsters driven by hate to destroy the world? What in the name of Cepheid was he missing? "Lina… I… listen,"

She shook her head, hair flying as she kept speaking. "No, you listen to me. There's a lot of stuff that you probably don't know. There's a lot that you won't know, but there's some things that you need to know. And one of them is about Jedah."

He turned, pulling his hand free from hers. "I know about him. I know all about him. He's Hellmaster, and he's not my brother." For some reason the fact that he wasn't related hurt him more than he could explain. Maybe it was because he'd wanted a family.

"No, he's not your brother. You are related, though. He's Rezo's half brother. But that's beside the point." She took a breath, preparing her thoughts. Zelgadis didn't know that Jedah had stayed true to his promise, didn't know the lengths to which he went to protect her. "A long time ago, you made Jedah promise to protect me."

Zelgadis nodded warily, recalling that day when he had handed Jedah the pendant, making the then-seeming youth promise to give it to Lina with the greatest of care, making him promise to protect Lina if anything happened to Zelgadis himself. "I remember doing that."

"He did, Zel. He even destroyed someone that he cared deeply about in order to protect me." Lina skirted around the identity, partly because it made her head hurt to think of Xellos being anyone's lover. "I can't begin to understand how that hurt Jedah." And then she'd been tactless to ask him how he'd managed to do it.

Zelgadis looked stunned, his memory filtering through the details. He'd been standing in front of Lina, watching Xellos taunt her when he'd been hit by Jedah's magic and knocked out. But that meant that… "Xellos," His voice was a startled whisper. "Jedah destroyed Xellos… his…" The look on Lina's face confirmed it, and he stood there for a moment, taken aback.

"Yeah, I think that's what I thought, too." Lina admitted softly. "But the thing is that Jedah isn't evil and neither are you. You're both Mazoku, you're both pretty damned powerful, but you're better than Mazoku like Mazenda and Kanzeil." She took a deep breath and continued. "And the only reason I'm here is because Jedah held true to his word."

Zelgadis' memory flared, something that Jedah had done, a mental link, a whispered memory of a lifetime. Jedah had hidden nothing from him, not even his choice of Xellos. He hadn't seen it at the time, had only barely grasped the Truth within the gift given when he'd rejected it out of hand. But now… now, with the words that Lina gave him, the truth that he could hear in her voice… "What do I do now?"

The words that Lina gave him were an echo of words that he'd heard before, words that a memory of Rezo had given him in warning. "You have to accept yourself, Zelgadis. You have to accept who and what you are. You may not have always been a Mazoku, but you can't deny your own existence."

He was struck by the clarity with which she spoke, the words open and honest and, for once, he didn't argue. "It seems that I'm still learning who and what I am, Lina. I thought I knew, but now I'm not so sure. Are you certain that you want to stick around and find out?" It was the only way that Zelgadis could think to admit his beginning to accept his nature and to give her the chance to leave if she needed it.

Lina walked up to him, reaching up with both hands to touch his cheeks and look to him in complete and utter seriousness. The glitter in her eyes reminded him of the day that she had said 'I Do' in that tiny little chapel on the other side of the non-existent barrier, and he found that he was holding his breath. "Zelgadis Greywords, you just _try_ to get rid of me."

Her kiss sealed her words, and he reached up, holding her tightly to him as if he never wanted to let her go. Because of this, they both missed the trio standing on the other side of the hedge fence, the three companions who had stood witness to his admission of acceptance and her words in reply. The trio didn't stay, though, moving on before they were noticed, each smiling as if the sun had come out to shine on a dreary day.


	38. Chapter 38

Chapter 38

In his pained need to leave the group in the hotel, Jedah hadn't paid attention to where he was going, merely cast himself out on the wild impulse of his heart, reaching for somewhere that might bring him peace and solitude. One place had resonated, his heart yearning and reaching, pulling him to return to solidarity, to alight on the ground with a click.

Light blue eyes opened, and Jedah found himself standing in the ruined building that magic indicated that Cassandra had used as her own. What was this place? Why had he drawn himself here? Magic spilled out from his hand, a glittering gold illuminating the room where he had appeared.

What might have once been rich tapestries, elegant creations covered the walls, the colors run and faded with time. Frowning, he moved towards one, touching it and watching it crumble to dust at his fingertip. This place was old, steeped in memory, dark in magic. It whispered of secrets long gone past, of stories lost and things best left unremembered.

It was a ruined chapel, Jedah realized with a start, a place that had once been home to candlelit ceremonies, vigils and quiet vespers. It was a place where Cepheid had once been held in reverence, but somewhere along the way had fallen. It was familiar to him, though distantly, the memory tingling just out of reach.

He moved out of the room, casting, sensing, the decided feeling that he had been here before creeping over him with tiny little tingles. Down the hall, around the corner, through the arch and down the stairs, there should be a niche where... Yes. He had been here, though it had been almost… no, more than a thousand years.

This was a monastery, a place that Jedah knew entirely too well. But why had Cassandra chosen this place? Was it because it was abandoned? Did she even know why it had been? How could she have? He doubted that she knew, though a part of him wondered why Xellos hadn't said anything. Maybe it had been due to the shock of seeing the Heart in the room that he now knew had been on the lower level of the dormitory.

Everywhere he stepped, memory whispered. A table had been there, a desk over there. Sconces with candles should have adorned the walls, making the air heavy with the scent of tallow. The stone floor rang echoes of missing carpets in his ears as he walked. It felt surreal, as if he'd tried to go home to find that home had moved on without him. He'd never lived within these walls, but he'd spent enough time here with…

_Xelander_.

The name had been nearly forgotten, buried in the depths of his life some thousand years past. Yes, that had been the name once and long ago. It brought the pained quirk of a smile to his lips, and Jedah shook his head as he continued walking through the ruins of the chapel, turning towards the scriptorium and through it on to the library, his magic lighting his passage through the halls.

Here, too, time had wrought its own magic, the books that hadn't been taken with those who had left fallen to dust. His memory filled the gaps, narrow little tables standing neatly in seemingly endless rows, each with its own purpose. Some were for books that needed to be copied; some were for books that needed repair. Some others were for research and writing, while others were for overflow book storage.

Jedah could almost hear the scratching of quills on parchment, could almost smell the wax candles that were carefully tended lest the precious books within the room catch fire and burn. He'd helped douse a wayward candle once, though none had known it was he who had done it. He hadn't mentioned it, either, for the thought that a Mazoku would act to preserve a portion of a monastery for Cepheid was alien. All he'd truly wanted to do was protect the copy that… he forced his mind away from the memory, dousing his magic, letting the library settle into darkness.

He left the room quickly, slipping out into the arcade and walking along it as he looked through the open arches to the cloister. It had grown wild, a testament to nature's ability to adapt, for he found that the brilliant pink roses had completely taken over the refectory, barring access to all but those such as himself. And even he didn't wish to tangle with those thorns. He'd been accidentally pushed into that rosebush once, and he could still recall the anguish of the Priest who had done it.

Shaking his head in bemusement at the memory, for the Priest had never known how marvelous the pain had been for Jedah, he turned into the long hallway that led to the catacombs, and found to his amazement, that the large stoneworked door was still intact. It wouldn't budge, however, so he slipped through it, emerging into nearly complete darkness on the opposite side. Granted, that didn't bother him, it merely took a thought to change his method of seeing. He didn't bother casting for the golden light this time.

He did not dare use magic, did not dare to breathe in the dust of the crypt where he stood. Instead, Jedah shed his mortal appearance and allowed his Mazoku nature to expand, to allow him to see and exist, to move himself silently along the corridors, passing the graves long turned to dust. Deeper into the heart of the crypt he went, finally coming to stop in a deathly silent niche. Here, he might find solace. Here, where he once upon a time had met with a mortal that dared to choose something greater.

He allowed the darkness to soothe him, welcomed the solitude that it granted. There was no living creature within a day's walk from here, and there was no reason for a mortal to dare shelter within these walls. It granted him the space that he needed and the memories that could wash over his fragile Mortal heart and help it to heal.


	39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Amelia barely got to the bakery before she turned to look at her sister with brilliantly shining eyes. Hearts and flowers could have burst into being around her, she was so happily overjoyed. "Isn't it great, Zelgadis and Lina are back together!" She did a little pirouette on her toes, and Naga sighed in amusement.

"Yes, but there's still Jedah to consider. I feel so sorry for him…" Naga said quietly as she considered the baskets of bread and muffins. "He gave up so much, and got so very little back…" She liked the look of those dark rolls… but she wasn't sure what kind they were. If they had those rye seeds in them, then she wasn't too interested in them.

"My husband owes him an apology." Sylphiel commented dryly, moving to a basket with pastries in it and looking them over. It was said so firmly that both Naga and Amelia turned to look to the Cleric in surprise. Sylphiel didn't normally carry such conviction in her voice without being extremely and visibly angry.

"Sylphiel, are you okay?" The younger woman asked is her surprise. She'd never seen the Cleric so irritated before, and to think that it was over a Mazoku… it made Amelia wonder how many hearts Jedah was stealing. Probably more than she cared to admit. Everyone seemed to love him, even though he was Hellmaster.

Naga watched the Cleric reach out and choose some pastries before she turned to look over and reply. "These will do, thank you. Yes, Amelia, I'm fine. You know how I hate to see others suffer, and Gourry only made poor Jedah feel worse than he already did."

Naga wondered for a moment what Jedah might say to being called 'poor' but she decided not to say anything about it, instead pointing to a basket of hard rolls and bemusedly watching the baker's eyes when she indicated that she wanted the whole basket full.

"He carries a heavier weight than it seems he does." Amelia commented in reply, picking a smaller basket of dark bread that looked like it had raisins in it. "All of that youthful exuberance hides a well of sorrow." She knew all too well how similar Jedah and Zelgadis were, how very much akin to brothers they were, no matter how little blood ran between them.

"How would one wish for his happiness?" Sylphiel mused as she counted coin for her payment. "I could wish for something good to come to him, but it's a matter of perspective isn't it? What I think of as 'good' might be disastrous to him." She smiled at the nervous baker as she collected her bagged pastries.

It was Naga who came up with the best solution, though it took her the entire time to pay and gather her four bags before she had the right words put together. "I'd wish for his happiness. No matter what it is that would bring a smile to his face, that's what we can hope for. Unless, of course, that meant one of us were to be injured or something equally as uncomfortable. He is after all, a Mazoku…"

That was the source of the quandary, how to provide something to Jedah that would mean what they wanted it to… but without the potential for sacrifice that it presented. "If it was Xellos, I'd know what to say. But it's Jedah… and he's more an enigma than anything else." Amelia said as she paid for her purchase, ignoring the looks she got from both women. "I will freely admit that I love Jedah probably more than I ought to."

The trio left the bakery, much to the relief of the baker, who immediately closed his shop to go hide in a corner at the concept of three women gossiping over how to bring a smile to a distressed Mazoku's face. The admission of love from the youngest of them made the milk he'd had with breakfast curdle and he was feeling quite ill at the thought.

They walked down the street, moving back towards the hotel, each carrying varying sized bags of bread. Naga resorted to casting a levitation spell to carry hers and had her hands clasped behind her head as she walked. "What was it that Jedah told you, Amelia? What made you change your mind?" She knew that her sister would understand the question, and she was pretty sure Sylphiel had noticed it too.

Amelia paused self-consciously, but caught up with the others quickly and gave it a bit of thought before she replied. "Part of it is a secret that I can't tell… but he paid a terrible price to save Zelgadis. He risked more than he thought he could. In a way, it made me love him all the more…" She smiled at her sister's expression. "Jedah may be a Mazoku, he may even be Hellmaster, there's so much to him that transcends it."

Naga had to agree with her sister, though she didn't have nearly the experience in dealing with Mazoku that Amelia and Sylphiel had. "He loves, too. You can see it in his eyes, see that he genuinely cares. I don't know what that will ultimately mean for him, but I don't think that there's any duplicity in what he does."

"That makes him all the better," Sylphiel mused as they rounded the bend in the road that brought them back to the front of the hotel. "But we shouldn't speak of this to Zelgadis… it's likely a sensitive subject, being that he is much the same." She drew the group to a stop by the hedge, casting a glance into the garden. The previous occupants had moved on, and she was glad they'd had a chance to hear those words of earlier.

Amelia and Naga both agreed, and Naga realized that she'd have to bring her bags in by hand, being that the door was too small for her magical carrying spell. She scrambled to catch the bags while her sister and the Cleric entered the hotel, trying not to laugh at her.


	40. Chapter 40

Chapter 40

Dawn came, a brilliance breaking across the sky, waking birds and people alike, once more calling to order the lives within its reach. Bells pealed through the air, waking those who had tried to sleep through the dawn's break.

One young man was awake, however, and had been so for a considerable period of time. He was not quite waist-deep in the ice-cold river, relaxing in the sheer sharpness of the feeling against his skin. His hair was silver-white, a glittering reminder of how harshly and often he drew on his magic. Eyes once a deep cobalt blue were now closer to a washed out and startlingly pale light blue.

He exhaled, ducking under the water and swam a short length before breaking through the surface and gulping the warmer air. All too soon, the water would warm, the air would become hot, and the reminder of the desert slightly to the southeast would come in the form of the storms.

He preferred the chill, the breathtaking rush of the cold water as it hit him with dizzying clarity. It was, in his earnest opinion, the best way to wake in the morning. It washed the cobwebs and sleep right out of his thoughts and left him clear for the remainder of the day.

It had also earned him the nickname of Iceman. It wasn't an endearment.

He was vaguely aware that he had an audience, but then he'd gotten used to the stares of the locals, even his compatriots in the monastery. He had never claimed to be the best choice for a Cepheid Priest, but he'd willingly chosen this way of life rather than fight with his father.

Those in his monastery weren't the chaste type, for Cepheid had never placed that onus upon his followers. Several within the walls of the monastery thought that the best worship was spent together. He thought that it was all overrated. Besides, who in the world could care about a spindly underpowered kid like himself?

One or two girls in the town smiled when he walked by, but he was fairly certain it wasn't because they found him overly attractive. But something this time, well, some bizarre sensation overwhelmed him and he opened his mouth as he wrung the water out of his hair. "Like what you see?" His voice was a contralto, light and lifted across the water to the one who was watching.

A figure with long black hair stepped into the water, and he moved closer, seemingly uncaring that his clothing was getting wet. "I rather think I do, yes. Though, this is perhaps neither the place nor the time."

Pale blue eyes widened, and after the surprise flickered away, he laughed, shaking his silver hair. "You must be new to these parts, for I do not believe that we have met. I am Xelander, a Priest of Cephied. A good day to you." It was hard to retain proper decorum when one was naked in the middle of an ice-cold river, but he'd give it his best try.

There came a laugh, a thing of merry amusement as the dark-haired arrival offered a bow of a most elegant form. "I am most pleased to meet you, Xelander of the Monastery. I am Jedah, Mazoku son of Juuou. I think that we will find each other's company well matched indeed. Enjoy your morning. We shall meet again…" Before Xelander could move, the other had vanished, and the priest found himself staring in amazement.

_Mazoku son of Juuou… Jedah._

Why did he feel so at ease with that knowledge? He was a Priest of Cepheid; he should be dressing in all due haste and running to warn the others that a Mazoku was nearby. He shouldn't be returning to his bath, running his fingers through his hair to shake out the extra water.

He should be afeared.

Instead, he was intrigued.

It was well into evening when Xelander encountered the Mazoku again. He'd walked to town to purchase supplies, and along the way back, a figure had fallen into step beside him. "Well, fancy meeting you here," the Mazoku said with an amused grin. "I mean, it's not every day that one such as I am is… graced with the presence of a Cepheid Priest." There was an unvoiced chuckle in his voice.

"Ah, yes. Well…" Xelander found himself replying, distracted from any reaction that he ought to have had. He should have been hurling spells and defenses. What he _was_ doing was walking along calmly, as if there was nothing at all wrong with his situation.

"Supplies, I take it?" Jedah couldn't help being amused. This poor priest would be easy pickings, being that he had such a low opinion of himself and didn't have the normal reaction that most did to his arrival. "I don't suppose that Cepheid couldn't simply provide food for his priests."

Xelander shook his head, continuing to walk. "If Cepheid were to provide for us, we would become lazy and do nothing for ourselves." It was, of course, rhetoric, words given by many years of training with no feeling or emotion within them.

Jedah nodded sagely. "Ah, I see." He'd heard that before. He called it answer Number One. Time to see if he got answer Number Two. "And it pleases you to go collect the food and supplies on your own?" Usually, the answer was more rhetoric about how his brother in service had collected food before him, and his brother would continue to do so after he was gone.

Xelander regarded the bags in each hand, the pack on his back, and then he answered. "Actually, no. But I consider it an act of self-preservation, for if I didn't go collect the food, there would be nothing for me to eat."

The reply was so unexpectedly honest, Jedah burst into laughter. "You have a refreshingly honest viewpoint, Xelander. What in the name of Shabranigdo brings you here?" Almost absently, he reached out and snagged a bag from the priest. May as well ease the possible suspicions…

"Well, you see, it came about like this…" No-one had ever asked Xelander why he was there, and he found the answer came all too easily to his lips. In all the time he'd spent in the monastery, he'd not once found a friend. Until now.

It figured that it would be a Mazoku.


	41. Chapter 41

Chapter 41

The memory faded, settling about Jedah as he retook his mortal form and looked around himself. He'd made his way back up into the courtyard, and his heels clicked lightly on the flagstone as he landed. He looked around, shaking his head, and then he moved towards the far side of the open area. He wanted to see what had managed to survive the years. Surely the basic stonework would still be there…

The door had long ago rotted to dust, but he ducked through the stone archway anyway, somehow still managing to smile at the memory of the door that squeaked, no matter how often Xelander oiled the hinges. It had been somewhat of a joke with them, the fact that Jedah could slip into the dormitory without opening the door, but Xelander couldn't get out without waking the world.

He slipped up the small staircase, walking through another hallway, heading towards the room that had been Xelander's. It had taken several months, but Jedah had learned that the youth had wanted to be an artist, and amiably, Jedah had provided him with a sheaf of parchment and some ink. He'd been interested in seeing how talented Xelander had been.

He'd not been disappointed, for the first thing Xelander had done was rendered into startling detail the river where they had first met. Jedah still had that drawing, too. He paused at the arch that had been the doorway, looking in, seeing the memory of the youth turn and call out to him that he'd finished the sketch that he'd done of Jedah. Xelander had been so proud, so eager to show it off, and he'd worked so hard on it.

Jedah had stepped into the room, and the door had barely closed behind him when Xelander had started over to show Jedah… and tripped. Jedah caught him, staggered, fell backwards against the door, and landed hard on the floor. An awkward moment had followed, and then Xelander had chosen to laugh it off, to thank Jedah for providing a soft landing.

Jedah shook his head as he remembered that strange rush of emotion, that sudden desire to do more than just laugh and sit up and act as if it had been nothing at all. But he had, he'd run his fingers through his hair, scraped his nails along his scalp painfully to distract himself, and then admired the sketch.

Nothing had happened, but it had been the first indication that something might have been there.

It had been a month before anything had come of that awkward moment, and it had been another accident that had sparked it. They'd been sitting on a risen embankment over a lake that Jedah had found. Xelander was drawing the landscape, his hand moving the pen and ink across the parchment as if he was creating his own spell. Jedah was kicked back, alternately watching the sun set and Xelander furiously try to draw the shadows before the darkness overtook them.

Jedah had sat up, leaned over to look at the drawing, and the soft ground below him shifted, and before he'd realized it, Xelander had caught him, pulling him backwards and away from falling down into the lake. He hadn't even thought about it, really, had just reached up and caught Jedah into his embrace, throwing them both backwards. It had ended with them in a very compromising situation… and had told them both more than words could possibly have said.

Xelander never did finish that drawing.

She stood, watching him, her gold bracelets clinking together as she lifted the cigarette to her lips. Her foolish, foolish son, clinging to mortal memory, clinging to his heart. What was so fascinating about the pain and destruction that it could bring? Why was he so determined to hold himself beholden to it when he didn't need to? She'd watched him all of his life, tried to understand it, and perhaps in a sense had learned some of its pull itself. There could be no other reason that she'd placed the pieces in place ahead of time, no explanation for her giving those commands.

No explanation for what she was about to do now. She reached out her free hand, touching the figure before her. "You have done well. Now, go. The time for the Avatar is not yet upon us; there is no need for you to remain. Do not disappoint me." The last was spoken as a gentle warning, her voice almost lifted in question, but not quite reaching that final tone of query. The figure vanished and she took another puff of her cigarette, musing out loud. "Oh, Terim, what _have_ you done to me?"

The room was nearly empty, and Jedah nodded, not having expected anything organic to have survived. There had been a lot of happy times here, a lot of long nights, some spent talking, some spent with Jedah lounging as Xelander had drawn page after page of inkings. Others had been spent somewhere else, but they'd always come back here.

He lifted his hand, a wash of magic rippling away from him, restoring the room, bringing the memory of the past back into the present. In the whole ruin, this was the one room that he would interfere with the natural pattern of progression. This one place was where he would say goodbye and leave it be.

The desk returned, nothing remarkable save for the fact that the drawers held the inks and pens that Jedah had brought as gifts. The parchments could never be recreated, not because Jedah couldn't, but because they wouldn't be the same. The nearly threadbare rug unrolled on the floor, the shabbily-embroidered curtain unfurled before the tiny little window.

And then the bed faded in from memory, the starched linen sheets uncreased and pristine, tugging harder at Jedah's heart than perhaps Zelgadis had. He could remember nights spent in that bed, it hadn't occurred to him that it would hurt to look at it once more.

He moved to touch the corner of the bed, his left hand fisted on the scar over his heart, his eyes closed tightly against the tears that he understood but didn't comprehend. His lips moved, and while he had meant to offer a farewell, the words that slipped free were entirely different. "Do you like what you see?"


	42. Chapter 42

Chapter 42

Lina and Zelgadis had made their way back into the hotel almost half an hour after the girls had left Gourry upstairs. They'd walked upstairs in companionable silence, and when they reached the upstairs, Lina called out first to Jedah, and then after a moment, Amelia. No answer came, so she tried Naga, and when she called for Sylphiel, Gourry stuck his head out of the room.

"Oh! Hey, Lina! They went to go get breakfast." It occurred to him that Zelgadis was behind her, and he grinned brightly. "Hi, Zel! Jedah said you were back!" He didn't mention how he'd said it, didn't mention the fact that he'd managed to say the wrong thing and offend the one who had been protecting Lina.

"Yeah. I'm back," Zelgadis agreed, glancing around. "Where is he, anyway?" There were a few things that Zelgadis had to say to Jedah, among them a thank you for keeping Lina safe, followed by a swift spell to the face for lying to him for all those years. He still wasn't sure what to make of that.

Gourry shrugged as he walked out into the hallway. "I don't know. He was kind of upset when he left, something about losing everything he'd ever cared about." He had a few suspicions of what Jedah had meant, but he wasn't going to go there.

"My husband leapt to the wrong conclusion and accused Jedah of making Amelia cry." Sylphiel said from the top of the stairs, her blue gaze hard on her husband. "Understandably, Jedah lost his temper, saying that he was tired of being insinuated as the bad guy in every situation just because he was a Mazoku."

Lina's slipper came from out of nowhere, beating Gourry on the head with surprising force. "You jellyfish! You can't go around blaming Jedah for every little thing that goes wrong!" She got in two more hits before the slipper was taken away by Zelgadis.

"I'll track him down later. Calm down, Lina, and let's have breakfast." Zelgadis knew that no matter how some things changed, many things would end up staying the same. Lina beating people with slippers was a universal constant. She didn't care who or what you were, she'd pull a slipper and beat you if she thought it would make an impression.

Lina turned and looked at him, at first with annoyance in her eyes, but it melted into a grin as her eyes took on a twinkle. "Yeah, that sounds good." She wanted to tell him how happy she was to have him there to take that slipper away from her, but she was pretty sure that he could tell.

Breakfast had been as madcap as a meal with them ever was; jokes and comments flew along with the rolls. Gourry had caught on early that all he had to do was annoy Lina and she'd bean him with whatever chunk of bread happened to be in her hand. So he spent most of the meal annoying her.

Sylphiel and Amelia were, of course, the most civilized in eating style, though Amelia was less restrained in the amount of food that she consumed. She topped out at five rolls, however, and sat back to watch the rolls fly, half-listening to the banter. A roll came flying at her, and she caught it out of reflex, looking to Lina, who was trying to look innocent. As usual, she was failing. "Oh, sorry, Lina… I didn't mean to daydream."

Lina smirked, casting a glance to Zelgadis, who had been the one to throw the roll. "He threw it, but I'd asked what everyone's plans were. I don't know about you guys, but I'm still worn out. I spent a lot of last night awake, talking." All she wanted to do was spend some time with Zelgadis, to continue their conversation somewhere that wouldn't be overheard or interrupted.

Naga looked up from her thirteenth roll (not that Amelia was counting,) and looked at Zelgadis. She thought to speak, but decided to swallow first, picking up her glass to wash her mouthful down, and then ask her question. "You still have all that fancy Mazoku magic at your command?"

Zelgadis gave it a moment's thought, and then with a flicker of his wrist, he summoned the skull necklace that Xellos had once cursed and Naga had left behind in Saillune. With his trademark half-grin, he lobbed it across the way to her. "I think that's a yes, why?"

Naga caught the skull and gave it a careful eying before she tucked it in her pocket and waved at him. "So take her and get out of here. We don't need you right now. Go spend some time together. Sleep, or do whatever it is you married folks do." The wicked gleam in her eyes indicated that she knew exactly what she was suggesting.

Sylphiel glanced at Gourry and then looked down to her roll quickly, hiding her smile by taking another bite of it. Amelia's cheeks pinked, Lina's eyes rounded, but Zelgadis grinned at Naga, reminding her of Jedah. As she watched, Lina and Zelgadis faded from view, swept off somewhere by Zelgadis' magic.

"Well," Naga said as she scooped up another roll and took a bite from it, chewing for a moment before swallowing. "I'm going shopping. I need a new chain for my necklace… anyone up for spending some money in this little town?"

Amelia leapt to her feet, eager to do something to take her mind off of wondering what had happened to Jedah. "Everyone's been so nice here, we ought to contribute to the welfare of the townsfolk." She headed for her bed, collected her pouch and affixed it to her waist. "Sylphiel? Want to come with us? We might visit the local Cleric's Guild… just to see what damage Xellos did before we got here."

"Oh!" Sylphiel looked alarmed. "I'd forgotten that he'd been here for a while before we got here! There's no telling what he's done, and I don't think they have many full ranked Clerics here…" She hurried to her feet, casting a glance to her husband. "Gourry dear," she began, forgetting in her haste that she was still mad at him. "Will you take care of things here?"

Gourry was just happy that she wasn't mad anymore. "Sure! See you later!" Sometimes it paid to play the idiot. Nine times out of ten, it kept him out of worse trouble than it got him into.


	43. Chapter 43

Chapter 43

_Yes_.

The word was an echo.

A memory.

A whisper.

A voice.

Jedah opened his eyes, staring at the linen sheets. Damn his heart, summoning the echoes of the past. He unfisted his hand, touching the scar briefly before lowering his hand and turning away from the bed. He would walk from this room, walk because he respected the memory and would leave appropriately.

He hadn't restored the door, so he lifted his hand to do that when it occurred to him. There was a figure in the doorway, looking at him. No-one should have known where he was. No-one had a reason to come here, so who was that half-shrouded in shadow? "I can't decide if you're brave or foolish to trespass on sacred ground during a memorial. Show yourself completely, or be gone."

The figure stepped forwards into the room, a man with pale silvery-white hair and faded blue eyes. Jedah stepped back instinctively, his left hand reflexively moving to his scar, right hand lifting slightly as if to call a spell. But as the figure approached, the hair darkened, purpled, the eyes following the pattern of hues until a nearly perfect impression of Xellos stood but a foot's distance from Jedah.

"How _dare_ you! You had _no_ right! _Get out of here!_" Jedah's anger burst brilliantly into his eyes, unmitigated fury washing over him. The simulacrum had somehow tracked him here, tainted the room with his little display, and torn at Jedah's heart far more than he wanted to admit.

The violet eyes widened, surprise clear within them, but Jedah wasn't playing games. He moved backwards again, left hand joining the right hand in front of him, a bolt of violet-blue edged scarlet power forming between his hands. It fired off, a brilliant spell that wouldn't destroy but deter. He didn't dare risk damaging the room.

To his absolute and incredulous amazement, the spell was blocked, hitting a staff with a broken circle surrounding a brilliant red orb. Neutralized, the magic rippled off as if it had been nothing more than a simple light spell as the doppelganger lowered his staff and looked calmly at Jedah.

There was only one who could control the blood orb, only one Mazoku that could draw that much power from it without being utterly destroyed by the power it contained. He knew who that one Mazoku was, and he found that he should have expected that of the simulacrum as well. "My mother remade you too well. Get out of here. I'll call you when I want you." Which would be never, as far as Jedah was concerned.

But still the apparition didn't move. He stood there, his violet eyes watching, and then he sighed, lowering his gaze and opening his mouth to speak. "I had not realized what you meant to me until I thought that Gourry had destroyed you with the Sword of Light."

His words were soft, catching Jedah off guard and compelling him to listen. After a moment, he continued. "I did not realize how much I meant to you until now." That violet gaze lifted, showing the old familiar smile that was once shared across a crowded room and meant more things that could be spoken. "I thank you, Jedah Greywords Metallium. I will leave you to your memorial." He bowed, and turned to move from the room, the staff vanishing.

Jedah was stunned. Was that? Could it be? Something made him step forwards, a name on his tongue, a name that he hadn't given voice to in too long. So long indeed that he might have forgotten how it was pronounced, save for the fact that it was etched into his mind as clear as the water had been when they'd first met. "Xelander…?" The response would tell him.

The other stopped, lifting his head so that violet hair dusted just below his collar. Half-turning, he offered Jedah a smile. "Once upon a memory, my Lord Hellmaster. Once upon a very happy memory." He turned away, intent on following his orders and leaving Jedah, but when he looked up, his path was blocked by the man who had given them.

Jedah didn't recall moving, but he had, shifting his position to block the other's path. He couldn't believe it, almost didn't dare hope that it was true. "It's you. Really you. I mean… I didn't… But I…" With every halting word, he watched the amusement rise in those violet eyes. "How in the name of Shabranigdo did you survive??" Hope rose, wild and desperate, along with an almost breathless desire to touch the violet hair and make certain that he wasn't seeing another memory that existed only in his mind.

It was Xellos that reached out and took his hand. "I survived because it was the will of Juuou. Your mother orchestrated it, made me aware of the importance of timing. All it took was to play the part she'd given me. It allowed me to rescue you before Zelgadis destroyed the Tower. When you were recovering, you almost had hold of me, but I managed to get free before you focused on me."

Jedah could feel the magic resonate, could feel the link he had thought was shattered burst brilliantly back into life at the touch of their hands. He felt like grinning madly, once again the exuberant youth that he'd often played for Zelgadis' benefit. After a few moments of fighting it, he let that grin creep across his face, and he watched an echo of it cross Xellos'.

"There is one thing that I must ask, however," Xellos said, looking to Jedah thoughtfully, considering his words carefully. The question was a delicate one, but he felt somehow that it had to be asked. He watched Jedah's face and saw the expectation, so he continued, his voice lifting into a bemused tone. "Do you like what you see?"

Jedah stepped forwards, placing a hand on Xellos' cheek. He looked at the light in those violet eyes that he thought he'd never see again, saw the emotion there and his smile gentled, turning into a thing of bemusement. "Yes, I rather think I do."


	44. Chapter 44

Chapter 44

Lina and Zelgadis had made their way back into the hotel, and walked upstairs in companionable silence. When Zelgadis opened the door to the room that he had rented as 'Rick,' Lina gasped in surprise. "That was you??"

There was a flicker of memory, and he realized with a jolt that he'd forgotten that. His cheeks turned scarlet, and he looked back at her sheepishly. "I… yes. It was. I'm sorry; I'd forgotten it until just now. I hadn't known that it was you in the room across from me… not that I was in any condition to be pleased about it."

Lina followed him into the room, looking at the sparse collection of travel gear. "At least that didn't change. You always did stick to the basics." She picked up the leather pack, poking her nose in and finding nothing that would remotely pass as treasure.

"Hey!" He protested, reaching for the bag with a chuckle. "I don't _need_ to carry anything, Lina. It was all part of the disguise. And be careful of sticking your nose into things I had before. I can't be certain that nothing will bite." Zelgadis said it in jest, but he was afraid that he meant it. He wasn't sure what sort of traps he had laid, or where. He knew of one, and it shamed him into flushing scarlet again.

She watched the color rise and tilted her head. "What is it, Zel?" There was something there that made him react like that, and she stepped forwards, absently putting the bag down on the edge of the bed. "What's wrong?"

"My power… the spell-trap that I cast… it killed you. I cast a spell that did exactly what I would never have done, had I been in my right mind." He couldn't look her in the eye, couldn't bear to think of the expression on her face, so he missed her closing the distance until her hands were there, forcing his face to hers.

"Zel… look at me." She waited until his aquamarine eyes met her gaze, and she smiled softly to him. "Now stop it." She watched his eyes widen, and she looked at him firmly. "I'm here, and you're here, and that's in the past. Stop dwelling on it. Today isn't yesterday. Learn and move on." She felt echoes of the words that Jedah had spoken to her, and made a mental note to thank him when she saw him next. In fact… she frowned as she looked around. "I wonder where Jedah is…"

Zelgadis was about to answer, when Amelia stuck her head in the room. "Oh! You're back! I'm packed and ready to go home. I've been in Eastern Ralteague long enough now, it's time to go back to Saillune and immerse myself in the comforts of home." She didn't wait for a reply, just went back out into the hall, calling out that Lina and Zelgadis were back, and it was time to go home.

It surprised Lina, but she looked over to Zelgadis, who merely shrugged. He didn't care much where they went, just as long as they stayed together. They were familiar, a reminder of who he was, that tie that bound him to himself. It was something that he had lost, forgotten, and he found that he treasured it all the more now that he had found it again.

Jedah, of course, hadn't been seen since his explosion at Gourry, and Naga was trying not to mention it, casting the occasional glance towards her sister, who was even more intense than usual. Sylphiel just looked away every time Naga's eyes flickered to Amelia, and even Gourry picked up on the unease.

Zelgadis finally decided to be the one to say it after a tense hour of walking. "Look… Amelia, Jedah can find any one of us at any moment he chooses. He's Hellmaster; it's not a stretch at all. You know how easy it was for Xellos to find us whenever he wanted…" He lifted his hand, calling his will to bend the world around them, the woods fading into the walls of Saillune's Royal Gardens. "And I'd rather not fuss with walking the entire way if I don't have to."

There was some considerable merit to traveling with a Mazoku, Naga thought, looking around to see the familiar stone walls. What she didn't expect was Amelia to sink to her knees with tears in her eyes. Casting a worried look to everyone, she bent to her sister and coerced her to her feet, walking her towards the Palace with soft words of encouragement.

Sylphiel's heart immediately went out to the younger girl, and she looked to Lina with concern clear in her eyes. "Poor Amelia…" but she couldn't say anything else, couldn't offer any other words or thoughts. She didn't know what to say, so she didn't try.

"Let them go, Sylphiel… It's been a shock for her," Lina sounded so sad, watching the sisters as they entered the Palace. "It will take time, just like everything else." Just like it would take time for her to get used to Zelgadis' nature… just as it would take time for him to get used to it as well.

Gourry tugged at Sylphiel's arm, and when she looked up, her eyes widened for a moment, and she turned to Gourry. "I'm sure Lina's right. And we should probably check on the house… I'm sure the cat wonders what happened to us…" She looked back to Lina with a forced little smile. "Stop by once you've settled in?"

Female intuition told Lina that Something Was Afoot, and so she only nodded to Sylphiel's query, frowning. When she turned her head, however, she knew at once what it was that had set Sylphiel and Gourry to such a hasty departure.

A figure was standing near the koi pond, black hair loose just past his shoulders, gaze down to the water. She heard the sharp intake of breath as Zelgadis recognized Jedah, and she caught his arm as he began to move towards him. "Zel… he protected me from everything that could have hurt me."

The aquamarine gaze settled on Lina, and for a moment, Zelgadis' eyes were unreadable. But they softened, and he leaned down, kissing her gently before he turned. "I know, Lina. I promise to keep that in mind." He gave her hand a light squeeze, and then he began to walk across the grass towards the man that he could easily blame for so much that had happened in his life.


	45. Chapter 45

Chapter 45

The birds chirped softly in the distance as Jedah stood near the little pond, watching the orange and white fish swimming in the water. He knew that he'd been spotted, knew that Zelgadis was walking towards him, leaving Lina to stand awkwardly in the distance for a moment before she too turned towards the Palace.

Zelgadis walked up quietly, standing on the same side of the pond as Jedah, but not next to him. He didn't want to give the wrong impression, didn't want Jedah to think that he'd been forgiven on account of Lina's testimony on his behalf.

Jedah didn't need to look up to know how Zelgadis was feeling. He didn't need to hear thoughts or voice to know that there was no trust between them. It was odd, the feeling of being a complete stranger to a man with whom he had played the younger brother. "Lina seems happy." It was a neutral way of opening a conversation, not accusatory, not defensive, just… observant.

" She's fine," Zelgadis replied, just as casually. He knew the game, could play it with equal ease. He had no intentions of letting Jedah off easily, if he indeed decided to let Jedah off at all. It all depended on what was said and done.

Jedah closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath, and then he turned to look at Zelgadis. "Look, Zelgadis, I know there's a lot of things that you'd probably love to have at me about, but before you do, there are a few things that I'm just going to come out and tell you." He didn't wait for a reply; he knew if he did, it would only be tangential.

"Contrary to popular belief, we are related. Rezo was my younger half-brother, which means we do share bloodlines. I knew of you before we met, which _was_ in Ambervale while you were being controlled by the fragment of Shabranigdo that had been buried in Rezo. The part about me breaking your mind? That's true. It was the only way that I could hold back that madness... that same madness that took you when Cassandra tried to take your power. The only difference is that Cassandra wasn't an insane bit of Shabranigdo trying to control you."

Zelgadis blinked at the onslaught of words. So at least part of his memories were true. He had stood against Jedah in the outskirts of Ambervale, he remembered it as if it had been yesterday, the cold ice in his mind, the sudden jerking back to sanity. He remembered it, and it turned his stomach. Fighting his less-than-ego boosting reaction, he blurted out a single word question. "Why?"

"Because you were supposed to live a normal life, Zelgadis. You were supposed to grow up in a peaceful town and never know the curse that your bloodline carried." Jedah shook his head slowly. "But Rezo had other plans. His research caused the disease that took the town, and when he discovered that you were born resistant to the illness… he wanted your power. He wanted you to have enough power to cure his blindness."

Zelgadis felt as if a bolt of lightning had shot through him. "I… was supposed to have enough power…?" Suddenly things made a little bit more sense. Why Rezo had always looked on him as a failure. Why Rezo had pushed Zelgadis to be more powerful… it wasn't strength that he was pushing, as the young man had once thought. It had been magical power. "He wanted me to be a stronger Cleric than he was."

Jedah looked off at a chirping bird. "He wanted you to be the one to free him from the curse that he couldn't undo. But in the end, the madness of the fragment that he carried only dragged you down into it." He sighed and lifted his light blue eyes to the sky. "All I could do was place those barriers, change those memories, and hope that in time, I could help you overcome the curse. I didn't think that you might find the trigger and try to undo it yourself."

Zelgadis thought about it for a moment. "It wasn't Rezo who placed that spell. It was you. You used an image of Rezo because you knew that I wouldn't fight him. And I didn't… until I met Lina. She was the first person other than Xolf and Rodimus to accept me for who and what I was." More importantly, Lina was the first woman who hadn't shrunk from him in terror.

Jedah nodded. "And by the time I caught back up with you, you'd defeated Hellmaster Phibrizo and I'd taken his place. The dynamics were different. You seemed happier, less shadowed by yourself. I'd hoped that you would let the quest for a cure go in the light of someone accepting you."

"Instead, I hated myself all the more," Zelgadis said quietly, turning to look at the water. "I loved Lina, and I wanted to be with her. When I found the barrier in my mind, I did everything I could to break it. And in the end, it broke me." He could feel the truth in Jedah's words, could sense that Jedah wasn't lying, wasn't trying to play it off as a sequence of unfortunate events.

"I'm sorry for that, Zelgadis. I tried to undo what my brother did to you, tried to give you the family that you desperately wanted. And I failed miserably, I know that now. What did I know of being mortal? I tried, I honestly tried. And at times, I had more fun playing your brother than I did being a ruthless Mazoku." Jedah gave a sad little half-laugh. "We are more a pair than we could individually have known… both of us Mazoku who carry the burden of mortal hearts. I have no right to ask you to forgive me, I know that. Maybe one day, I'll be able to ask for your forgiveness."

Zelgadis was finding it very hard to hate Jedah. He'd been angry, but that anger seemed to have faded, for when Zelgadis reached for the pain of learning that Jedah had lied, it wasn't as sharp as it had been. Was it because of what he heard? What he felt? Was this what made the both of them so vastly different from the other Mazoku that walked the world and left destruction in their wakes? He leveled his aquamarine gaze on Jedah and spoke. "You don't have to ask, Jedah. You had it the moment you protected Lina from me."


	46. Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Inside the Palace, Lina discovered the hard way, looked akin to the way a small town looked after one of her boosted Dragon Slave spells had subsided. Amelia had obviously come through in quite a mood, sending servants and various items scattered across her path. With a heavy sigh, Lina followed the trail of sniffling maids, shattered china and embarrassed footmen until she came up on the sisters.

Lina had a fairly good idea what was eating Amelia, and she had every intention of smacking some sense into the younger Princess before too much damage was done and the servants had more than the normal gossip to share. The last thing she needed was for some of the more… sensitive information to get out in the ears of the public.

Amelia was on a tirade about the curtains of all things, and Lina pushed her way past Naga, grabbed Amelia by the arm and started to pull the Princess away with danger in her own voice. "Amelia, a word. NOW." She gave the smaller woman no choice in the matter, practically dragging her off into a side room and slamming the door shut in Naga's surprised face.

"Explain yourself, Lina! I'll have you thrown out for this-!" Amelia's tirade was cut off by a sharp slap delivered by Lina's hand, the redheaded sorceress having finally reached the end of her proverbial tether and landed in a mental pool of annoyed exasperation. And it was high time she returned that slap…

"I'll explain myself just fine, Amelia! And when I'm through, _then_ you can decide if you want to throw me out or not. But don't you dare take it out on your people. You're the Crown Princess; you'd better start acting like it." Lina's voice was hard, and she knew the words that she spoke were cutting, but she was tired of the drama.

She didn't give Amelia a chance to talk, noting the light of defiance in Amelia's eyes and giving a short barking laugh. "You think that I don't know what this is about. Well, try again, Amelia. I've been there. I _am_ there. I know what you're feeling and I know what you want. Unfortunately, we both know the likelihood of that happening." Lina was snapping, and she knew it. She took a deep breath to calm herself, and held her hand up to stop Amelia from speaking.

"Look, Amelia…" Lina sighed, forcing herself quieter, forcing her voice steady before she herself lost control. "We're all emotional. We've been, quite literally, through Hell, and we came out the other side to learn that the man leading us safely through was Hellmaster himself. And yeah, that's more than a little daunting. Especially when you fall in love along the way."

"He said that he was done," Amelia sniffled, fighting her tears. "He said that he'd acted against his nature and lost nearly everything, even his lover…." She fell silent, unable to voice the words that Jedah had shouted, unable to recall anything but the pain in his eyes as he'd looked at her. It made her eyes burn to fight the tears, but she was too angry to cry with Lina in the room.

"I know what he's done," Lina replied quietly, glancing back to the still-closed door. She knew Naga was on the other side, probably fuming, but she wasn't about to share this with anyone but Amelia. She hated having to share it at all, but being that it wasn't exactly what one could call a normal situation, she felt it necessary. "I told you that I knew how you felt for a reason, Amelia."

Lina started towards a chair, and the tone in her voice made Amelia follow. Two footsteps in, she put it together and gasped, her stomach falling to the floor, that rush of realization tingling through her. "Lina!" The shock rang in her voice, the understanding so completely clear that it felt like the moment was made of the most fragile of crystal.

The sorceress sat quietly in the darkened corner, choosing the chair most shadowed, just in case someone opened the door and looked in. She was so close to tears herself that she didn't dare risk being visible by any curious servants. "Yeah, you got it. I'd already figured it out." Lina's voice was quiet, and she sat forwards, pinching the bridge of her nose. She could hear Amelia's footsteps as she approached and heard the chair shift as the Princess sat.

For a while, there was silence in the room, and then Amelia hesitantly broke it, her voice almost a whisper. "It's so strange… to think… it never dawned on me that Mazoku could love, so I never thought…"

"Normally, they don't. But Jedah and Zelgadis are… different. They have mortal hearts. I think Xellos did too, and that's why he and Jedah suited each other." Lina sighed, sitting back in the chair and looking to Amelia. "It's hard, yes, but how can I be upset at him for something we didn't know, couldn't expect, and can't change?"

Amelia looked across the shadow, stricken into silence by Lina's questioning; unable to put an answer together that was reasonable to everyone involved. Finally, she answered slowly, putting thought into her words as she spoke them. "It wouldn't be fair to them to hurt them by being angry with them for being something that they can't change." She paused, thinking carefully, and after a moment, she too sat back in her chair. "If they work together, maybe they can come up with a way to be at least…"

Crimson eyes lifted to look across to the woman who would one day be Queen. "Will they ever work together, Amelia? We can't begin to know what happened between the two of them. Jedah did something to Zelgadis a long time ago, and that needs to be worked out. They have hearts, just like we do… and if they end up hating each other, will we ever have peace?" Did Lina ever think she'd have a discussion like this with Amelia? Never in all of her years. The question left them both silent, each lost in contemplation of the answers that weren't yet found.


	47. Chapter 47

Chapter 47

Sylphiel and Gourry had just rounded the bend in the path that led to the front door of their residence when Gourry saw a man standing at the door as if he was waiting for someone to answer the door. Sylphiel recognized him at once, and called out as she approached. "Oh! Claribold! What can I do for you?"

The Cleric turned, surprise in his eyes as he registered the presence of Sylphiel and Gourry behind him. "I wanted to bring word… there was a meeting, and I brought forth your concerns." He looked somewhat uneasy, and stepped aside to allow Gourry to open the door and let them all inside.

Once inside, Sylphiel moved for the small grey cat on the sofa that had picked up her head when she heard voices. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mimi. We won't leave you like that again." The cat looked less concerned than Sylphiel seemed to think she was, but that was okay as far as Gourry could tell. He'd only ever met one other more self-sufficient as that cat, and that was Zelgadis.

Claribold chuckled a bit, but when Sylphiel turned, his demeanor became somber again. Her eyebrow arched and she set the cat down with a sigh. "Let me guess, they saw no need for concern." In all honesty, she'd expected it. If there was one thing that she could depend on, it was the Council of High Cleric's reluctance to do anything.

"Well… no, they saw an incredible concern. In fact, they were all for bringing forth the Artifacts until we had a visitor." Claribold said, waving off the offer of some grapes, and opting to take the glass of water Gourry offered.

"Visitor?" Gourry said, placing the bowl of grapes on the table, where the cat immediately had to investigate. "Hey!" He shooed her off before she got too curious and decided to take a bite of one of the round fruits.

Claribold took a sip of water, and looked to Sylphiel quietly for a moment. "The Knight of Cepheid came. She said that the Artifacts weren't necessary, and that everything was well contained." He frowned as he recalled her arrival, her cryptic words and almost immediate departure. "Do you have any idea of what that meant?"

Sylphiel shook her head slowly, nodding. She knew exactly what that meant, precisely what the Cepheid Knight had been saying and not saying. "The potential Avatar was neutralized by Lord Hellmaster Jedaikun."

Silence filled the living room as Gourry and Sylphiel watched Claribold turn pale, look to them for confirmation, and upon finding only the patent smiles of accepted understanding, he went scarlet. "Hellmaster? You allied yourselves with Hellmaster against the potential Avatar of Shabranigdo??"

"It was the lesser of the two evils," Gourry shrugged, watching the Head Cleric attempt to wrap his brain around the concept. "I mean, when you think about it, the hierarchy states that the Avatar would be in command over Hellmaster…" As he spoke Gourry placed his hand on Claribold's shoulder, leading the man to the back door, and out into the garden where they could talk.

Sylphiel dropped her shoulders, sighing a sigh that seemed heavier than it should have been. Shaking her head, she followed her husband and Claribold, determined to put on as brave a face as possible. Perhaps, in time, understanding could be reached.

The blonde woman sat quietly, listening as the man's voice carried on, a dissertation given on the status of events. After a few moments, she lifted a hand, halting him in his observations. "So then, Cassandra wasn't truly an agent of Deep Sea Dolphin. She only tried to wield that power without understanding it."

"Indeed. It seems that she had a rudimentary understanding of the post and set herself up over the years, building her abilities until she could find the one that she thought would be Avatar. She picked Zelgadis because of his power and how easily he could be broken." The reply was much as she had expected.

"And Jedah played directly into that, foolishly following after Zelgadis," She sighed as she sat back in the chair, her golden bracelets jingling together. "Still, I believe the end result sits better than before. Zelgadis still wields the power granted by his bloodline. I wonder, however. Would he have become Avatar?" She mused thoughtfully, considering the powerbase demonstrated.

"I do not believe that he could have. While Zelgadis has the capacity for the level of magic, he clings to his mortality. There are no indications that he would shed his mortality and his ties to the impression of humanity. Quite frankly, even though he had the power to destroy her, he stopped in the face of Lina Inverse." That little moment at the end would remain unmentioned, for no-one knew what might have happened if Jedah hadn't come in before Zelgadis could touch Lina.

"You also cling to them a bit more than you ought to, Xellos. You would do well to recall that. As long as it entertains you, there is no concern… unless it directly contradicts my commands." She crossed her legs at the ankles, and leaned forwards again. "Just take care not to cross my son. He may love you, but you won't always have the warning and foreknowledge that you had before."

Xellos lifted his head, those violet eyes open and unflinching as he looked back to Zelas. "My Mistress, there are a handful of people that I take care not to cross lightly. Your son is second only to you." It sounded smooth, glib, even rehearsed, but he meant it. He neglected to mention that Lina and Zelgadis were both on that list as well, for varying reasons known only to himself.

Zelas gestured to him, watching as Xellos approached her, his face calm and composed. When he was close enough, she reached out and brought his face close to hers, pressing her words against his cheek. "You get away with things because my son chose you. Do not forget that, little trickster." She pushed him away, sitting back. "Now go, I'm sure you have people to annoy."

With a sardonic smile, Xellos faded into nothing, leaving Zelas to her thoughts.


	48. Chapter 48

Chapter 48

The words fell into silence, though they echoed within Jedah's head as if they'd been accompanied by a great clap of thunder. Zelgadis had forgiven him. He almost didn't dare believe it, but the truth echoed within them. He looked across the pond for a moment, and then spoke. "That's more than I could ever have asked, Zelgadis."

A fish leapt out of the water, flipping around in the air and then diving back under the surface, as if it had surprised itself in the act. It made Zelgadis half-smile, for he felt very much the same, that startled fish out of water who wanted nothing more than to dive back under the surface and return to something familiar. But circumstance was past that, wasn't it? "What will you do now, Jedah?"

Jedah too had seen the fish, and wondered if it was supposed to be something symbolic, or if the creature was simply trying to avoid one confrontation by leaping out into the unknown. It struck him as entirely too akin to his own actions, and he looked up at Zelgadis. "I don't know. There's no great pull for me to be anywhere, so I would imagine that I'm free to do as I please. I haven't been struck down for insolence… yet."

"Mmm," Zelgadis replied, all too aware of the risks that Jedah had taken. "Do you expect to be struck down?" He knew of a few things that Jedah had done that could put him on the hit list… among them, the destruction of Xellos and the protection of Lina.

Jedah put his hands behind his head, looking up to the sky for a moment before he dropped his hands and shrugged. "Eventually. I am who I am, Zelgadis. One day, I'm sure that I will do something that will offend someone more powerful or be contrary to whatever Great Plan is in process at that time. But as long as I stay true to my beliefs, then there won't be many regrets."

It surprised Zelgadis to hear those words, to hear Jedah so accepting of his existence and his potential fate. "Many regrets?" With the easy acceptance of his nature, Jedah seemed hardly the type to have regrets. Well, with the exception of Xellos' destruction…

For lack of anything better to do, Jedah summoned some bread from the kitchens of the Palace and tore a small bit off, rolling it into a ball between his fingers before he tossed it into the water. The resultant frenzy of fish was amusing, and Jedah tossed in a few more breadballs before he replied. "I have a few regrets, but overall, I am not unhappy with the life that I have lived."

That was an alien concept to Zelgadis. And while he knew that Jedah was in part responsible, he also knew that Jedah had done what he could to make it better than it had been. He watched the madcap mayhem of the fish for a moment before he spoke again. "I regret that you are not my brother. Some of those memories were my best."

"Not all of those memories are false, Zelgadis. You and I honestly did do some of those things." Jedah replied with a soft chuckle. "The night we drugged the wine and went to town and hid in the tavern, that was real."

"Hid in the tavern? Didn't I catch you in the back with the serving wench?" Zelgadis retorted, seeming to recall things a little differently than Jedah. "There I was, thinking you were a year younger than me, finding you locking lips with a girl older than me!" He'd been a bit jealous at the time, but Jedah had been the more open of the two.

Jedah broke out laughing, tossing the remainder of the breadchunks into the water. "Yes, you did as a matter of fact. Broke up one of the best kisses in my life, though you never caught us at the other things we'd sneak off to." He watched the color rise in Zelgadis' cheeks, chuckling. He almost felt like the younger brother again, and while he knew it would pass again into that awkward stiffness between them, he'd enjoy the moment.

Zelgadis preferred to think of Jedah as his brother as well, though he was finding it hard to say it. The words of personal thought never had come easily to his voice, and he wished for a moment that he could be comfortable with simply opening his mouth and saying it. He didn't want to be at odds with Jedah. _I wish I was your brother, Jedah,_ he thought, watching Jedah laugh. _I just don't know how to say it now._

To Zelgadis' surprise, Jedah stopped laughing and looked to him thoughtfully, as if he had heard Zelgadis' thoughts. For a moment, Jedah debated with himself over telling Zelgadis that he'd heard that wish, at last deciding that he ought to admit it. _Isn't that all you need to say, Zelgadis?_

Startled aquamarine eyes met light blue ones, and though it took Zelgadis a moment, he smiled in reply. _I'd wondered about that. Now that I know, I'm glad of it._ At the queried look, he amended his thought. _The telepathy. As for being my brother, there are a few rules._

The birds chirped around the two as the fish in the pond settled into swimming hopeful for more bread to rain down on them. Jedah broke the silence, voicing his question instead of continuing the telepathy, as there wasn't any need for the privacy that mind-to-mind communication offered. "Rules?"

"Yes. No more waking me up at the crack of dawn by landing on me." Zelgadis' voice was dry with humor, and only his eyes betrayed his laughter. "For one, you're a bit old for that. For another, Lina will kill you." He wasn't sure if Lina could, but he had no doubt that the result of Jedah randomly landing on the bed would be less than pleasant.

"Okay… but I reserve my right to do whatever I can to annoy you in the time-honored tradition of the younger brother's role." Jedah grinned, once more seeming to be the youth that had tagged along behind him. "Besides, we both know you'd be lost without me." And on that, he took off towards the Palace, laughing at Zelgadis, as if he'd managed to pull a trick on him and was trying to get away with it.


	49. Chapter 49

Chapter 49

Naga was sulking outside the door when Jedah and Zelgadis walked up, noting the broken china fragments that were still being cleaned up. It wasn't too hard for either man to come up with what had happened, but it was Zelgadis who spoke. "Looks like Amelia's in a mood."

Naga snorted, rolling her eyes. "Both of them are. They're holed up in there, and I can't get the door open to find out if they've killed each other yet." She'd tried, but found the door locked, and barring more destruction of the Palace, she wasn't going to get in there.

Jedah and Zelgadis exchanged a glance, and then both turned to grin at Naga. Completely unnerved by the nearly identical expressions, she could only stand and watch as they simply stepped through the wall as if it wasn't there and had no relative bearing on them. When it occurred to her what they had done, she shrieked in annoyance. "Oh, those Mazoku!"

It took everything that the two men had to not laugh at Naga's reaction, and they watched as the two girls in the shadows looked over towards the sound, and then spotted the two who had entered the room in the way that only they could. When the women exchanged glances, both men instinctively became worried.

"What?" Zelgadis and Jedah both managed to say at the same time, in nearly the exact same tone of voice. If they noticed, they didn't react, but looked to Lina and Amelia as if they somehow suspected both women were going to cast Dragon Slaves and try to blast them back out of the room.

"Well, I think that question is answered, Amelia." Lina remarked cryptically, standing to walk across to look at Zelgadis and Jedah. "The only question now is what do we do?" She didn't think that the two of them would have been there together if they weren't getting along.

Both Jedah and Zelgadis had that creeping feeling that the girls had been talking about them, and they weren't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Zelgadis braved the unease, offering "We could go out there and let Naga know that you two haven't killed each other…"

Amelia stood, looking to Jedah for confirmation. "My sister said that?" There was a hint of amusement in her voice, and she fought the urge to giggle in absurd relief that things may not be perfect, but at the very least, they'd be okay.

"I can understand why, Amelia. I did drag you in here rather forcefully," Lina said, turning to the Princess. "You probably ought to decide if you're going to throw me out or not." As if Lina was worried.

For a moment, Amelia actually gave it some thought. In fact, she waited until Lina looked genuinely concerned before she laughed and shook her head. "I'll just make you explain it to my sister." That was almost as bad as being thrown out, Amelia knew.

Zelgadis looked at Lina, a flicker of a thought crossing his mind. If they were talking about what he thought they were… "I'd rather not, Amelia. The less Naga knows about some situations, the better." He reached out and took Lina's hand, moving towards the door.

Jedah made as if to say something, but then he simply shook his head, a thought slipping from his mind. _They've been talking. By the way they reacted; it was us they were discussing. Should we ask?_ He glanced at Zelgadis as they moved across the room.

"Lina…" Zelgadis paused before they reached the door. "What did you mean by 'that question is answered'?" He turned to look to her, saw the expression on her face, and her half-glance over to Amelia.

Amelia only looked back, folding her arms. "We were worried that you and Jedah would fight. After all Jedah gave up… I couldn't tell if he was mad at you or not. He said he was done, and I thought…If there was a fight… after what Jedah did to Xellos…"

"Oh," Jedah replied. "Um," he continued, looking at Amelia with an almost owlish blink. His own words echoed back at him and his eyes widened further. "Oh!" A few more moments passed, and Jedah started to grin.

Nonplussed, Lina looked to Zelgadis, who seemed as bewildered as she did. "Uh… Jedah? Want to let us in on the joke?" She watched as Jedah fought with himself, only to start laughing.

There was a snort, followed by a snicker which dissolved into a chuckle of its own and before Lina and Amelia could make sense of it, Jedah had tears in his eyes from laughter. "I wasn't… I wouldn't do _that_, Amelia!" It was taking a good deal of concentration to speak clearly through his laughter.

Scarlet, Amelia glared at Jedah. "Then what were you telling me, Jedah? Explain this!" She felt as if an enormous joke had just been played at her expense, and she wasn't pleased in the least little bit.

"I meant that I was through with putting up with Gourry and his rampant stupidity! I wouldn't have… " It was too much for Jedah and he burst into laughter again, not seeing the irate rage flash across Amelia's eyes, not seeing the incoming slipper until it was almost too late.

Lina, who had quietly handed over the slipper, watched as Amelia pounded on Jedah for a few moments, and then shook her head as Jedah scrambled to his feet and took off for the door, Amelia right behind him. Only after the two were out of the room did she start to laugh quietly. "Poor Amelia. Do you think she'll catch him?"

Zelgadis was still chuckling, but he put his arms around Lina and watched over her shoulder as the two tore through the hallway and out of sight around the corner. "I certainly hope so. There's enough tension between them…" At the sound of a loud crash, Zelgadis laughed again. "Then again, I think she just did."


	50. Chapter 50

Chapter 50

When Amelia leapt for Jedah, they were in the hallway of the Palace.

When he rolled with her under the impact, they came to a stop somewhere significantly not the hallway of the Palace. But Amelia didn't notice it at first, because she was too busy with the thought that Jedah was kissing her. And she was kissing him back.

He sat up, lifting his head to let her see where they were, and she realized that they weren't in the Palace. "Jedah…? Where are we?" She sat too, wondering how she'd ended up under him in his arms, but she wasn't going to complain. The carpet beneath her was soft, the light from the candles and the fireplace casting a gentle golden glow on the walls. It looked as if they'd landed in a study, or perhaps a library, for the atmosphere wasn't at all cloying, and Amelia couldn't see a bed.

Jedah rose to his feet, reaching down to offer a hand up to her, looking around as she dusted herself off. "This is one of my retreats. We're in Krimzon, north of Sairaag. This is one of the few places that I can come when my heart grows too weary. The people know me here, though not my station or race. To them, I'm simply Jedah."

"Krimzon… the most northern city in the Dukedom of Lyzielle…" Amelia mused softly, looking at the books on the walls. "I've only passed through this place once. It seemed a calm city by the water." She had to admit that she was a bit dumbstruck at how easily and quickly they had left Saillune, and how far from home she was.

Jedah walked up behind her and rested his hand on her shoulder. "Should I take you back?" He could see the slight unease in her stance, could imagine the thoughts running through her head. Could she trust him, would he leave her here to try and find her own way home? "Perhaps we shouldn't have come."

Amelia turned, looking to Jedah for a moment. "No… I'm flattered that you brought me here. And your willingness to offer me the chance to return when I seemed flustered proves your worth, though I may yet be a fool for it." She shook her head at herself, and then looked back to him. "But now, perhaps I'll get the chance to ask some questions."

He tilted his head and then smiled. "Go ahead, Amelia. Ask away. I can't guarantee an answer, but I'll listen to the questions." He offered her his hand, leading her to the chairs next to the fireplace, and waited for her to sit and compose herself before pouring them both generous goblets of water. "It's only water. Alcohol, as you can imagine, has little to no effect on me."

Amelia took the goblet and sipped from it as she waited for Jedah to sit. Once he did, she looked across to him and wondered where to start. "You seemed so young… so innocent. And yet… somehow, you knew more than you alluded, gave away bits and snippets of your knowledge." She watched him for a moment, and then tilted her head. "You even changed your hair and no-one said anything."

Jedah had the grace to turn pink. He lifted his hand to his hair, catching the ends and flipping them back and forth in his fingers. "I don't like to lie, Amelia. Perhaps that's why I had such a hard time hiding who I was, what I was. And yet… at times, I felt as if I was that little brother, that youth who saw things only brilliantly exciting. I never meant to become as… entwined as I did. Before I knew it, we were all in over our heads. To leave you there…" _Would have been the Mazoku thing to do._

"I've wondered…" Amelia said softly, looking at the flames in the fireplace instead of him. "In the cave, when you showed Naga who you were, why did you do that? I know that I interrupted something. Did you mean to show us who you were, or did I come upon you casting a spell?" It had been a secret fear that Jedah had been casting some sort of spell on her sister.

"I…" Jedah thought about it. He had needed Naga on his side, needed to ease the suspicions and doubt. Like it had done any good, and he wasn't about to tell Amelia that he had indeed tried to cast a charm on Naga. "I had to tell her, Amelia. Naga was asking too many questions, and that suspicion was unsettling the group. I didn't expect you to walk in like that, and I didn't intend for you to find out the way that you did." He ran his hand through his hair, a small part of his awareness laughing at his mortal reactions. He'd been playing the fool for far too long.

The bottom of the water goblet was a suddenly dazzling and intriguing thing, the cut crystal catching the light of the flames and casting shimmering light through Amelia's water. She watched it for a moment, missing his reaction to his own words. When he fell silent, she lifted her gaze from the goblet to look at him.

He was looking at the fire, his own water goblet forgotten in his hand. The light of the flames glinted in the brilliant blue of his eyes, dancing shadows in the depths, giving her a chance to look at him unguarded. He was startlingly pensive when he wasn't playing the imp, and she watched those eyes shift and lift to her gaze before she realized that he was looking back at her.

She offered him a smile before she lifted her goblet and took a sip, feeling somehow that she ought to explain herself. "You looked so sad. For a moment, I felt like I had a glimpse of the real Jedah." She watched the flicker in his eyes, and shook her head. "Did you ever intend for me to know the truth, Jedah? Did you ever mean for me to know that you were a Mazoku?"


	51. Chapter 51

Chapter 51

His gaze didn't leave hers as he considered his reply, and then gave her the same that he had given Zelgadis before. "Ideally, no. In the best outcome, none of you would have known, not even Zelgadis. I'd have gone 'back home' and left you none the wiser." He quirked a hint of a grin that looked so very much like Zelgadis' that Amelia was more certain than ever that there was more than the hint of a familial relation. "I blew that one, didn't I?"

Amelia's own smile quirked a little and she nodded slowly. "In a way, I'm glad." His startled glance made her look at her water again. "I don't think I need to tell you, Jedah. I mean… even if you are… Hellmaster." She was surprised that he looked away when she named his title, watching him turn his head and cast his gaze at the fire. "You look away. Why?" He hadn't looked away before when someone had named his title, named his role in the Mazoku Hierarchy… it made no sense to her that he should do so now.

Jedah wasn't sure. He turned back to look to her, seeing the quiet reflection of the fire in her eyes, seeing the open and gentle curiosity. "I don't know. It almost seems… impolite of me to be Hellmaster." It was true, for some reason when he was with Amelia, he almost regretted being the creature that he was.

Amelia blinked, and then took another sip of water. "But that is who and what you are, Jedah. I just wish that you would show me the real you." She was a bit surprised that the words slipped out like that. She hadn't meant to say them, but there they were.

Jedah was startled too. He stood, clearing his throat and stepping away from the cozy fire, his back to the warmth that it provided. "Are you certain, Amelia?" He didn't turn around for her answer, he couldn't face the possibility that she might say no.

"Jedah, I saw only a glimpse of it before, a hint of who and what you are down in that cavern. Is it so wrong that I want to know?" She looked at his shoulders, saw how he was standing, the stiffness in his spine. She'd learned the hard way that when a man stood like that, it wasn't likely to go well. She had to try anyway.

He stood there for a moment before he lowered his head with a sigh and gave himself to his magic, calling it with reluctance, for the last time he'd appeared this way before her, she'd screamed. If she screamed this time… he'd spell her to sleep, take her back to her rooms and leave her there. But she had asked, and he would show her what she wanted.

Power pulsed, the light twisting around him, turning reversed for a moment, holding for just long enough for Amelia to realize that something had changed, and then it collapsed in on Jedah, returning to normal light, leaving him… different.

Amelia stood, placing her water goblet on the floor as she did so, walking towards him slowly. His hair was long, nearly down the length of his back, as black as night. She saw that even his clothing had changed, that he was now clothed head to foot in black, the shirt tucked almost seamlessly into his waistband, the purple and gold trim glittering ancient runes at her in the firelight.

He reeked of power, fairly glittered with it, a dangerous web of dazzling magic swirling around him, weaving in and out around his physical representation of Self before he lifted his gaze to her and dissolved before her eyes, leaving her standing within a glittered field of magic. As she held her breath, she saw a golden shimmer some few steps before her, and she moved to it, lifting a hand underneath the golden glitter, not quite touching her palm to it.

It was a small thing, a shimmering light that beckoned and shone with a pulsing beat, and with a jolt, Amelia realized that this had to be his heart, his one impossibility. She brought her other hand up, moving to cradle the pulsing glitter with both hands; eyes alight with the knowledge that he was willing to go so far to prove himself to her. "Oh… Jedah…"

The glittering pulse shifted, the swirl of magic around her beginning to coalesce, to draw in on itself as Jedah retook his mortal form, his hands forming in hers, grip gentle and light, squeezing her hands as he released her and took two hesitant steps away. Why had he done that? He hadn't needed to show her his heart, hadn't needed to risk her touch… but it had told him so much more than she could have told him in words. Amelia did love him, no matter how irrational it was.

"Sorry… I lost myself for a moment," It wasn't a lie; he had lost himself in a sense… lost himself to the hope that she wouldn't run or scream when he'd shifted. She hadn't, and he realized that it was relief that had made him shift the step further to reveal his own heart. Suddenly, after the fact, he found that was feeling more the fool than he ever had.

The silence spread through the room, catching the moment in a fragile crystal and holding it there breathlessly until Amelia moved, shattering the uncertainties and doubts. She crossed in front of Jedah, noting his hands held in loose fists at his side, his head still tilted down as if he didn't wish his face to be seen. But Amelia had other ideas.

She stepped into his space, stepped right into him, forcing him to look at her out of reflex. His eyes were still as brilliantly light as they had been before, though now the pupils were feline and they glittered with power. They were hypnotic, drawing her into them, and while she felt the pull, she knew that she was stepping willingly into its reach.

Up on tiptoe she went, reaching to his face, to place her hands on his cheeks and draw him down to her so that she could kiss him. For a moment, just as before, he froze. When she dropped back and looked at him, he lifted his hand to her cheek. "Amelia, I can't. If my power slips…"

She moved a hand to place gentle fingers on his lips. "That's a risk I'm willing to take, Jedah." She wasn't a child anymore, it was time to make her own decisions and on this she had chosen. This time, when she moved her hand and moved to kiss him, he drew her closer into him, returning the kiss with equal ardor.


	52. Chapter 52

Chapter 52

Lina and Zelgadis returned to the Palace several hours later, to find Naga practically beside herself. The staff had searched for Amelia and couldn't find her, and Naga was ready to call the Royal Guards and have Jedah's head on a platter. She'd already called for Sylphiel and Gourry to meet her, and when Zelgadis finally figured out what was going on, he cast out a thought, and his eyebrows lifted at the flicker that he received. Chuckling, looked back to the eldest Princess. "Naga, calm down. She's with Jedah and they're fine. They're somewhere perfectly safe."

"But she's-!" Naga burst, only to be interrupted by a strangely calm Zelgadis, considering the words that he was saying, and the nature of the knowledge he'd gained, feeling his cheeks pink slightly, but fighting it valiantly for a moment before it quite suddenly faded into acceptance as he thought about it and knew what needed to be said.

"An adult, Naga." Zelgadis lifted his hand as Naga opened her mouth to say something else. "She is the same age that you were when you met Lina. Consider that: how much had you accomplished? How much has she?" He let the words settle for a moment, and then softened his expression as he saw Sylphiel put her hand to her mouth in sudden understanding.

"Of all of us, Amelia's the one who has grown up without anyone noticing. She's not the little girl that jumped in terror every time I looked at her anymore. She can make her own choices; make her own way in life. If that path includes Jedah... then it's something we'll just have to work out for ourselves." Zelgadis' voice softened, the hard edge no longer necessary. He knew how much of a shock this had to be for Naga… he'd faced much the same earlier.

Lina tilted her head, looking to Zelgadis thoughtfully. He wasn't the same man, either. Jedah's words echoed back at her. _I'm not the me I started as. You aren't the you that was yesterday, or even this morning. We all grow, we all change. We do things that shape us and mold us differently from how we expected._

It was just as Jedah had said. None of them were the same as when they'd started, and they wouldn't be the same again. She kept her mouth closed, though, for she knew the chances of Naga listening were higher if she didn't muddy the waters with her own commentary. It was bad enough that Gourry looked like he was going to pipe up with something, and Lina relaxed slightly when Sylphiel put her hand on Gourry's arm and stopped him.

Naga sighed, lowering her head. "She's my sister, Zelgadis. I have a hard time looking at her and knowing who she is at times. Sometimes I feel as if she's somehow grown up past me, that even though I'm older than she is... somehow she managed to leave me behind." She'd been the one to run out on Amelia, it hadn't occurred that Amelia would continue to grow and become her own woman.

Zelgadis' hand fell to Naga's shoulder, his gaze and smile kind. "Naga, though you'll never believe me in a thousand years, I know how you feel. Somehow I was in my own head when Jedah told me who and what he was. It felt as if I'd failed him; somehow let him down by not being there for him. But he proved better of it in the end, and I know that as long as Amelia is with him, she's safer than she's ever been in this world."

"I'm just worried…" Naga said quietly, looking to Zelgadis. "I left her. I ran away and left her to the mercies of the world. Now she's out there and I don't know where she is if she needs me, or what she's doing." It didn't worry Naga so much that Amelia was with Jedah. It was the thought that her sister might be in over her head wherever she was.

"I can tell you what they're doing."

The voice that spoke was jarringly familiar, a sardonic and slightly nasal voice that none of them had expected to hear. As Zelgadis turned, he realized that he should have expected it, and had even had the ability to know it ahead of time… but hadn't thought to use it. "Xellos!" The moment his eyes fell upon the violet-haired figure, he knew that it was beyond a doubt the one that they had all thought gone.

Gloved hands lifted in a show of innocence that no-one believed. "Did you miss me?" Without waiting for a reply, the Trickster Priest continued brightly. "Too bad! I never left, what a shame." As he spoke, he walked closer, watching the expressions with closed-eyed glee. "No welcomes? No open arms and tears for a long-thought-lost companion?" He was mocking them, and they knew it.

Lina glared at Xellos, her eyes blazing with scarlet fury, and she stepped forwards with a snarl. "I have no welcomes for you, Xellos. Not after what you pulled with me earlier. Too bad you didn't get what you deserved." She moved to hit the Mazoku clad in the robes of a Priest, but he caught her hand easily, something he could have done whenever he so chose.

Xellos saw Zelgadis tense, and knew he had to move quickly. He pulled Lina into his embrace, looking at her furious eyes for a moment before he grinned darkly at her. "Oh, but I did, Lina. Oh… but I did." Before anyone could move, he leaned in and kissed her hard on the lips, vanishing as she lashed out, leaving her only empty air to try to pummel.

"Oh… that… FRUITCAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Lina shrieked, scarlet-faced, spinning around as if half-expecting to find Xellos taunting her from behind. Instead, her gaze fell on Zelgadis, and she glared at him as if he should have come to her rescue.

It would take most of the night for Zelgadis to calm her down, he realized with a sigh. Leave it to Xellos to return from the 'dead' and turn his life back into unmitigated chaotic hell.


	53. Chapter 53

Chapter 53

Dawn broke; the first hint of light breaking across Jedah's closed eyes. With a deep breath and a long slow sigh, he opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling above. Had he gone to Krimzon yesterday? With…? A feminine mumble snapped his thoughts out of hazy half-sleep, and Jedah lifted his head to see Amelia curled up in the blanket with him. After another moment, he considered his lack of clothing. Oh. Well. Yes, he had.

His pale blue gaze traced over her for a moment as he watched to see if she'd wake. When she didn't, he settled on watching her a bit more. He couldn't understand her, couldn't figure what it was about her that drew him closer. She soothed him, eased the pain in his fragile mortal heart.

He shifted, falling through the blankets of the makeshift bed, moving through the floor to the ceiling of the room below, passing through that and alighting on the floor of the foyer below the library. He drew a pair of pants around himself with a flicker of magic, and then leaned against the wall to close his eyes and wonder at himself.

What was he doing? He, Hellmaster, loving a mortal woman? He'd lost all semblance of sanity, hadn't he? "Oh… what am I doing?"

"I can tell you what you _were_ doing…" It was a whisper spoken, a voice that danced on the edge of his mind, and Jedah turned his head, opening his eyes to see Xellos standing there with a smirk.

Jedah didn't move, just stayed against the wall. "Xellos… don't use this against me." He didn't have it in him to fight over this. He loved them both, regardless. "I can't choose one or the other of you. I have no place in her life, no ground on which I could safely stand. If I am seen with her… well, you should know, after all. And you… after everything that's gone between us… May Shabranigdo condemn me for it, but I love you both."

Xellos found that his mouth had fallen open, but there weren't any words that he could give. Instead, he opened those violet eyes and looked to Jedah for a moment before closing the distance between them and kissing his lips softly. He faded from the room, his touch turning to so much mist as Jedah realized that Amelia had appeared in the archway from the stairs.

Jedah didn't need to ask if she'd seen; the silence that filled the room was enough to tell him that she had. And strangely, he felt no need or compulsion to explain. He just closed his eyes, sighing.

There were perhaps a handful of shuffles, a whisper of skin against wooden floor, and a soft hand touched Jedah's cheek. "Good morning, Jedah," Amelia's words were soft, and nearly broke his heart in the simplicity of which her acceptance of his nature ran.

He lifted his hand to hers, opening his eyes as he moved to kiss her fingers and look to her gently. "I know you saw him, Amelia. There's no need to hide it for my sake." It was written in her eyes, but it wasn't pain. It was surprise.

"You said your mother would recreate him. I think I was more surprised that he would look and sound so much like the old…" Amelia stopped, looking at the expression in his eyes, the glitter of pain that had flashed in that light blue for a second. "It _is_ him, isn't it? It isn't a recreation. How did he survive?"

"My mother set me up, Amelia. Though I doubt she knew the length to which I was willing to go, she gave Xellos orders that I knew nothing about." He stood, pulling her hand down from his cheek, looking at her for a moment before he smiled faintly. "We should get you home before they worry." There wasn't any need to explain who it was he meant.

Amelia tilted her head and at last nodded. "Yes… though if Xellos knows where you and I are, and what we do here…" There was little doubt in her mind that Zelgadis could find out just as easily. "Xellos…" she faltered. Would he tell? Did Mazoku such as Jedah and Xellos have jealous hearts as well as loving ones? She was afraid she already knew the answer.

Jedah shook his head, his magic wrapping around them both, swirling and sweeping around, changing their location with a single thought. "Don't worry about Xellos. I'll take care of him. But you must know that I cannot choose between you and him, Amelia. I love you both too dearly for that."

Amelia shook her head as she looked to him. "I couldn't ask that of you, Jedah." She paused, realizing that somehow in the discussion, they had returned to Saillune, and were both fully dressed in the foyer of the Palace. "What I will ask of you is this: Jedah Greywords Metallium, Hellmaster Jedaikun, I: Amelia wil Tesla Saillune request that you accept the post of Royal Advisor upon my ascension to the throne. You will be granted the rights and privileges that come with such post, including a pension, and barring the necessity of funds, housing within the Palace. In your capacity as Advisor, you will be expected to escort me to all State events until such time as I attain a Consort, and your insight to the Mazoku Hierarchy will prove invaluable."

In those words, Jedah heard not only the voice of a young woman in love, but the voice of a woman who knew what she was asking, and what paths it opened as well as closed. He saw it all clearly, as if she had laid it out on the floor before him and drawn it as clear as a map. As he fell to his knee before her, Jedah knew that he had been wrong in thinking that Amelia would be a good Queen: she already was.

"As you wish it, my Queen."


	54. Chapter 54

Chapter 54

The sudden pronouncement of Jedah's new rank within the mortal world shook the group far less than Amelia had expected it to. They'd been more concerned over her well-being, and when she'd archly asked them why all the fuss, they'd grown quite flustered and silent. Then again, when presented with the breakfast table, Lina and Naga both preferred to eat first and talk later.

It was several hours after the somewhat uneasy breakfast, and Amelia was sitting out by the koi pond, her old pastime suddenly calling to her. She was reading when a shadow fell over her, and she looked up to see that Lina had walked up. "Hi," Amelia offered quietly, resigning herself to the fact that Lina was probably going to give her hell for her decision.

Lina walked up to the water's edge and looked down to the ever-hopeful fish, not answering Amelia right away. After a moment, she turned back to Amelia, her face and eyes suddenly set and intense. "Are you happy, Amelia? I mean really happy?" The question settled over the slight distance and seemed to silence everything but the wind.

Amelia looked more than somewhat startled for a moment, and then she crooked a little half-smile, folding her book closed over her fingers and settling it into her lap. "Yes, I am, Lina. My life isn't perfect, but I think very much that it will do. Are _you_ happy, Lina?"

Lina considered. She couldn't answer as readily as Amelia could. She'd never be able to admit the fear that was deep in her heart that one day, she'd lose Zelgadis to the darkness that she sometimes saw glint in the depths of his eyes. "I'm as happy as I can be, Amelia. I have Zelgadis back and you're happy with Jedah… though I don't think I want to know how you managed to come up with a way to have a relationship with him."

Amelia grinned, sitting up to look at Lina, her book shifting out of her lap, pages closing around where she'd been reading. "There was… concern. At first, he was afraid that he'd hurt me. But… his magic just felt warm and gentle." She colored a little, realizing what she was telling Lina without saying so many words.

Lina only laughed, the wind picking up her hair, rippling it out behind her and catching the attention of the two men sitting on the balcony of Jedah's new rooms. They watched the two women talk for a moment, and then the older of the two looked over to the younger.

"Would you ever have imagined this possible, Zel? You and I, as we are now, happily with the two of them?" Jedah's voice was amused, the light winter gaze almost laughing, but not quite. It somehow stuck him as a colossal joke, that they were Mazoku with not only mortal hearts, for that was only part of it. The key was the soul that came with those hearts, the capacity to love so freely that it stepped past the boundary of power.

Zelgadis considered for a time, and then he shook his head. "No, but then, until recently, I wanted to reject one nature or the other. I couldn't find that center of self and live within it." Not until he'd seen through Jedah's eyes, not until his own heart had touched Jedah's. Not until he'd learned that he could love by feeling it.

That was what had ultimately broken the barrier between them, given Zelgadis the strength to look to Jedah and not only forgive but accept him. He wasn't sure that Jedah knew, and if Jedah didn't know, then Zelgadis wasn't going to tell. But his heart had, for a brief moment, touched Jedah's and felt the other's love. He knew how Jedah had hated what had been done to Zelgadis, knew the feelings which motivated him to break Zelgadis over what was left of Ambervale. He even knew how Jedah loved Amelia and Xellos both, despite all external comprehension.

It was, perhaps, due to that tiniest of touches, that Zelgadis also knew one more thing. He knew, without seeing it, without being told, about the scar that Jedah carried over his heart, knew that no matter how long it had to heal, it would always remain a pink line, an almost painful reminder of what he had done, what he had risked. Zelgadis knew that the scar was there because Jedah wanted it to be there.

Zelgadis moved, rising to his feet and looking out over the grounds of the Palace, looking across to the wall and seeing Xellos perched atop the parapet. For a moment, he considered sending a thought to Xellos, but then, decided against it. Instead, he turned and moved inside, prompting Jedah to rise and follow.

"Zel?" Jedah asked, feeling the first touch of worry. The previous thought hadn't been finished, verbally or mentally, and with Zelgadis' sudden retreat into the room, Jedah wasn't certain that the man he called brother was all right. "What is it? If something's wrong, tell me."

"There is something wrong, Jedah." Zelgadis said quietly, stopping and looking at the door that led to the hallway. When he felt Jedah close in behind him, he turned and caught the other's shoulder with his left hand, placing his right hand over Jedah's heart, feeling the scar burn under his hand. "_That_ is what's wrong. It's not your pain anymore."

Jedah couldn't breathe, and a flash of fear took over his thoughts. He couldn't even shift to the Mazoku, couldn't think, couldn't feel, couldn't… he blinked. Zelgadis was standing there, hands on his shoulders, steadying him on his feet. Frowning, Jedah lifted his hand to his chest, feeling nothing, not even the pain he'd come to know there. The scar was gone.

"I forgave you, Jedah. I figured that if there was anything that you could have possibly learned from me, it would have been not to hold on to pain that wasn't your own." Zelgadis quirked a half-grin, giving Jedah's shoulders a squeeze. "Guess you really are my brother after all."

It would take another few moments for Jedah to realize what had happened, and Zelgadis just left him there to think about it. He knew that eventually, a flying, leaping, over-exuberant Mazoku would land on him… but for now, he was going to go out to the grounds and enjoy the morning with his wife.


End file.
